Hey, everyone.
I'm Alex.
Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on "5 English Grammar Myths".
So, these are five things that, if you went to an English-speaking high school, college,
university, elementary school - you probably heard at some point from an English teacher
or someone else, or your friends who heard it from an English teacher.
So, today we are going to break down some of those things that you were told, and we
will unlearn what you have learned.
So, let's begin with number one.
Never start a sentence with "But" or "And", or other coordinating conjunctions you can
extend this to.
But why not?
Or what?
There are numerous examples in popular literature and even Holy Scripture where this rule is
broken again and again and again.
For example, in the story, The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans C.A. (Christian Andersen):
"But the emperor has nothing at all!"
Here you have a story by Francis Bacon in Of Death: "And what are you reading, Miss?"
And, here, in the King James Bible: "Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance - these may be
cured by reform or revolution.
But men do not live only by fighting evils."
So, as you can see, it is totally possible and it's unrealistic to expect people, especially
in conversation, not to start sentences with "But" or "And" sometimes.
Okay?
It's a decent guideline for essay writing, but for speech, and for writing fiction and
literature, it's...
It just...
It just doesn't happen.
All right.
Number two: Don't end a sentence with a preposition.
Now, a "preposition" is a word like: "at", "on", "in", "for", "by", "with", "against",
and it shows a relationship of time or place between words.
So, ideally, I think whoever came up with this myth thinks that, you know, you need
another word after the preposition to show the relationship between the words.
For example: "I'm excited about your birthday party", "I'm interested in music/video games",
so you need something after that "in", you need something after that "about"; you can't
just leave it just dangling at the end of a sentence.
Or can you?
Let's look at some sentences where we do this all the time.
So: "There's something I'd like to talk to you about."
How about: "What kind of music do you listen to"?
"To what kind of music do you listen?"
- that's ridiculous.
"What kind of music do you listen to"?
"Which school do you go to?"
I think you can see, here, that: "This is a rule you should be cautious of", you should
be wary of, and maybe this is a rule you shouldn't care about.
So let's continue to number three.
Double negatives are always wrong.
Now, I kind of agree and I'm on board with the idea that we need to be careful when we
use double negatives; the problem is when we say that they are always wrong.
Now, in this case, if you have a phrase, a sentence, like: "I don't have nothing!"
I agree; this is a bad sentence because it literally means: "I have something.
I don't have nothing; I have something."
So, if your meaning-your intended meaning-here, is that you have nothing, just say: "I have
nothing."
Okay?
In that case, I agree, double negatives - not cool.
However, you can use double negatives if you want to emphasize something, like: "I can't
not help people."
So, imagine in...
Maybe in a comic book, you have a superhero and they have these powers, and they need
to help people, so they say: "I can't not help; I must help."
It really makes it that much stronger to have the double negative there.
"We couldn't not pay attention."
Maybe the talk was very captivating or maybe it was very loud, so you were forced to pay
attention.
"We couldn't not pay attention; we had to pay attention."
Also, double negatives are very often used in pop culture, specifically pop music, like
this song here: "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone", something.
Those are the only words I know, and I can't even sing them very well, so I'm going to
continue to number four.
Never split infinitives - angry face.
Now, for some reason, I guess people think that "to" plus base verb should always be
together, and you cannot separate them because they're a compound unit of language that just
sticks.
However, here we have an example where you see this working in two ways.
So: "I really wanted to help her!"
So, we have "to" plus "help", this is the "to" infinitive that people say you should
never split.
Let's look at this sentence: "I wanted to really help her!"
So, here you can see that the meaning of the sentence changes based on the fact that you
moved the adverb really between "to" and "help", and it gives it an extra emphasis.
"I didn't only want to help her; I wanted to really help her.
Legitimately help her."
Okay?
I guess you could say: "I wanted to help her really", but it sounds kind of ridiculous.
So, it works better if you put the adverb between "to" and the base verb.
And, by the way, it is typically adverbs that people oppose when you're splitting infinitives.
So, here: "They plan to completely destroy the planet."
Yes, you could say: "They plan to destroy the planet completely", but it also works:
"They plan, not just to destroy it, but to completely destroy it."
The emphasis right before "destroy" gives it an extra punch.
Next: "We need to carefully map out our strategy."
Okay?
So: "We need to map out our strategy carefully", you can do that, too.
But, again, that extra punch before the base verb: "We need to carefully map out our strategy."
And finally, Star Trek fans: "The mission of the U.S.S.
Enterprise is to boldly go where no one has gone before".
"to boldly go".
Not just: "to go", "to go boldly" - "to boldly go".
All right?
So, we've done one, two, three, four - I guess that only leaves one.
Let's go on to number five.
Never use the passive voice.
Now, I get it - teachers don't want to receive a bunch of essays where students write: "School
was attended by me."
Okay?
Just say: "I attended school."
Use the active form.
However, there are some cases where the passive works, and it's used in many contexts; you
hear it on the news, you do see it in essays, and in some sentences it's really one of the
only things you can use in certain parts of the sentence.
So, let's look at some examples.
Here we have an active sentence and the passive equivalent.
So: "The earthquake toppled the Central Bank."
Here, this is active; the earthquake is the actor so it is doing the action.
"The earthquake toppled the Central Bank."
You can do this in the passive, and you can read this in a newspaper or hear it on a news
report, on TV, or on your laptop, or whatever screen you're using.
"The central bank was toppled by the earthquake."
You often hear the passive used when people want to, you know, not make the deaths of
people in a natural disaster seem as extreme, I guess.
I mean, you could say: "Yes, 2,000 people were killed", but this is better than saying,
like: "The gunman killed 2,000 people", which sounds very, very direct.
The passive takes you away from the event itself a little bit.
We also have sentences, like: "Obama was elected in 2008."
Yes, you could say: "The United States of America" or "The people elected Obama to be
president in 2008."
That's a mouthful, but why not just say: "Obama was elected in 2008"?
"Pesos are used in Mexico."
Fact.
So, you can use the passive to talk about simple facts like this, about which currency
is used in which countries.
And: "She deserves to be promoted."
Now, yes, you have "deserves" which is active.
"She deserves".
"...to be promoted", this is a passive construction.
"...to be promoted, you know, in her company, by her employer".
So, if you can say by who, by a person, by someone, by a body of people - you're using
the passive.
So: "She deserves to be promoted."
What other way are you going to say this sentence?
All right?
So, you know, generally it's a decent guideline for fiction writers, you know: Use active
writing, active writing, active writing.
Your protagonists should be active protagonists, but there are several contexts that aren't
even mentioned here that you can use the passive voice in, and I just used a preposition at
the end of a sentence.
Yes.
Screw you, grammar people.
Yeah, okay.
So, that's it - five grammar myths.
I hope after this video you realize that: Yes, we have rules.
And I don't like the word "rule", per se, because these were guidelines that were given
to you by teachers in high school, and elementary school, college, university because they didn't
want to read terrible, terrible sentences that, you know, are possible when you don't
follow some of these rules.
They don't want to see: "I don't got nothing."
Okay?
Like, that's a terrible sentence if your meaning is: "I have something" or you're trying to
say you don't have anything.
Okay?
So, that makes sense to me.
But these are guidelines, and guidelines do have room to go off the path a little bit.
You have some flexibility.
So, yes, try to follow the rules-"rules"-as best you can.
Think of them as guidelines - guidelines.
But know that you can go off the path a little bit, and that grammar isn't always a fixed
thing.
I will repeat that: Grammar isn't always a fixed thing.
If anyone tells you that, like: "This is the way it must be with prepositions, and double
negatives, and you know, the passive voice", say: "Hey, examples A, B, C" or just direct
them to this video, and say: "There's this guy on YouTube named Alex, and he works for
this website called engVid, and he said that your rules are just guidelines that I can
break because sometimes it makes sense to break rules."
All right?
If you want to test your understanding of this material and you want to break some grammar
rules, check out the quiz on www.engvid.com.
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