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

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I've come across the 'was = passive voice' before, but only in Americans - somewhere out there must be a school of teachers who have drummed it into their students.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I said you'd get into polls... I think their appeal to the reader is that of expressing opinion in a single click rather than having to work out how to formulate it.

I'm becoming a little alarmed about what people are learning about grammar. legionseagle belonged to some online writing group whose younger members (British, as far as I know) were always telling her she should remove all auxiliary verbs such as "was" and "had" on the grounds that they weakened the sentence, or put off the reader, or some such nonsense. They appeared to have no idea of anything but the most basic tense and mood. Presumably this starts from the idea of a simple past tense being active and direct, but they seem to be applying that idea as an inflexible rule which eliminates all shades of meaning. And they seem so certain of themselves that I suspect the fallacy has somehow got into parts of the teaching profession.

[shana.livejournal.com]

It only takes a few seconds to click a radio button; it takes a few minute to compose a thoughtful post.

And considering that I clicked your poll when I'd been awake less than fifteen minutes, I was in no condition to compose a thoughtful post.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

Whoa! Whatever else "he was doing it" may be, it is not passive voice.

[karinfromnosund.livejournal.com]

I actually had a half-formulated comment in my head, but then I saw that others had said more or less what I thought, so I didn't do it. I don't think you'd have much use for sixty identical comments...

[doire]

I've been pondering the ways I respond to comments.

Something very quick is no problem, so a poll click is easy.
Something that I really want to say to some one I know well is comparativly simple too. If I'm misunderstood, I can easily explain and not be worried.

Its the in between comments that are troublesome; the ones I want to get right, but are not quite sure if we use words the same way - never call an American's new pride and joy "really dinky" - the ones where I want to say something and really mean it, when I um and arr and never get around to posting for fear of getting it wrong.

And on another note entirely, I followed your links, went and bought some e-books, had a look round and only narrowly escaped buying "twilight". That could have put me off forever.