Followup on the grammar poll

[julesjones]

Yesterday's question about a point of grammar was inspired by a post on the subject over at Britwriters. Some of the British erotic romance writers have noticed that many of the American editors they work with insist on removing all "was" usages as being passive tense and wrong, which tends to freak one a bit if one speaks a dialect of English where the different sentences have distinctly different meanings. I haven't run into this personally, but I work with one publisher and hence one editor, who happens to be good at editing in both dialects.

I was telling watervole about the post, and she suggested that it might be simply an artefact of people blindly applying rules they've been taught without understanding the basis of the rules (which to some extent was my own reaction), or alternatively that language varies widely in the US and it might be a regional thing. So we thought it might be interesting to run a poll to see who did and didn't see a difference, and what their unprompted comments might be.

I tried to set up the question so that it wasn't too leading, and split out US and Canadian because if there was a difference it would be interesting to see which way Canadians went -- American or Commonwealth. Right now there are 64 answers, 63 of which say there is a difference. The one that doesn't is from someone who says they're British.

Now, it's a biased poll. Apart from anything else, if you read this blog, there's a high probability that you like reading and that you read both American and British English writers, and thus have been exposed to different usages. But looking at the comment thread, it seems to me that there is a subtle usage difference between American English and British/Commonwealth English, but Americans are perfectly capable of understanding the distinction that British English makes. Which is a good thing, considering how much we use it. Consider, for example, the opening lines of this post and the previous one, which were purely unconscious and not chosen to make a point.

I also note with interest that far more of you will click a radio button in a poll than will comment in text format. Is this one of the attractions of running the things? Will I succumb to the desire for shiny toys and the desire for feedback, provided in one convenient package by a simple (hah!) piece of code? Tune in next week to find out...

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

It may have been due at least in part to people like me coming late to the discussion, seeing that people had already said what I would have said, felt it would be pointless to say it again but -- ooh, look! a radio button! -- and the extra datapoint in the poll would add weight to the argument. :)

[julesjones]

Indeed. I think I shall be doing more as I think of things where they might provide interesting fodder, though I'll try not to spam people to death with them.