The Motivated Grammar blog pointed me at a couple of Boston Globe columns about "made up" rules of prescriptivist "grammar". You can go and check them out for yourself if you wish. They reminded me of a "rule" enforced by one of my teachers many years ago. He wasn't an English teacher, he was a History teacher* and the vigour with which he corrected one particular usage was startling.
It was the use of "would have", specifically in sentences such as "Prehistoric people would have built their homes near to water."
Now there are any number of reasons you might object to that sentence (factual accuracy, for example) but his reason bordered on the bizarre. And from the wrong side at that.
"Would have done" he insisted can ONLY be used for things that didn't happen. There mut be, he insisted, a "but" or an "if" to accompany it and negate it.
"I would have gone out, if it hadn't rained."
"I would have won the race but I tripped up."
I had chosen the "would have" form over the simple past deliberately because even aged twelve I was aware of nuances of meaning. By "would have" I was indicating that this was a very likely supposition but not something that I was personally certain enough of to use the simple past "Prehistoric people built...".
Even at the time I was sure that he was wrong, but he was a fierce and unpleasant man - one of old school don't-contradict-me-boy teachers - and so I never questioned his dictate. Maybe I could have checked it with an English teacher but even now I have the suspicion that as teachers they would have just stuck together. Nevertheless, it doesn't do to unquestioningly accept everything your teachers tell you.
(* Well I say history teacher because he was teaching me history. His main area though was as a P.E. teacher and, he knew as much about history as he did about English.)
It was the use of "would have", specifically in sentences such as "Prehistoric people would have built their homes near to water."
Now there are any number of reasons you might object to that sentence (factual accuracy, for example) but his reason bordered on the bizarre. And from the wrong side at that.
"Would have done" he insisted can ONLY be used for things that didn't happen. There mut be, he insisted, a "but" or an "if" to accompany it and negate it.
"I would have gone out, if it hadn't rained."
"I would have won the race but I tripped up."
I had chosen the "would have" form over the simple past deliberately because even aged twelve I was aware of nuances of meaning. By "would have" I was indicating that this was a very likely supposition but not something that I was personally certain enough of to use the simple past "Prehistoric people built...".
Even at the time I was sure that he was wrong, but he was a fierce and unpleasant man - one of old school don't-contradict-me-boy teachers - and so I never questioned his dictate. Maybe I could have checked it with an English teacher but even now I have the suspicion that as teachers they would have just stuck together. Nevertheless, it doesn't do to unquestioningly accept everything your teachers tell you.
(* Well I say history teacher because he was teaching me history. His main area though was as a P.E. teacher and, he knew as much about history as he did about English.)
1 comment:
Ahh. George.
I remember his completely incomprehensible account of dolmens/cromlechs. I still don't understand it. Apparently, the cromlech is equivalent to a "write-off" (note the use of elucidatory motor insurance terminology for the benefit of 11 year-olds) whilst the barrow was the pre-impact motor vehicle.
Any questions?
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