Says Who?
by Mark Gutman | 7 June 2024 |
About six years ago, I attended my first Toastmasters meeting, knowing nothing about how it worked. I gave an impromptu speech.
I was chagrined to hear a few minutes later from the listeners that I had said “um” six times. Toastmasters has an “ah counter” to keep track of how many “filler words” speakers use. Filler words counted include ah, uh, um, so, ya’ know, etc. I learned my lesson that day.
I’ve attended Toastmasters regularly since then, and I don’t think I’ve used an “um” or “ah” or similar crutch word.
Why not? Because you’re not supposed to. It’s considered bad, or improper, or whatever other negative term you want to apply. If you’ve been properly educated, you try to eliminate such words from a formal presentation.
Who made the rules?
Recently a fellow Toastmaster gave a speech in which he drew from Valerie Fridland’s book Like, Literally, Dude, which addresses so-called “inferior” ways of speaking. Fridland takes on things like the significance of using “like,” or how to pronounce “pajamas,” or ending a sentence with a preposition.
As a proofreader whose dad was an English teacher, and being myself a bit “aspie” (a now somewhat impolitic label, but one I own), I am really good at the rules of the English language.
Really good, notice; not real good. An adjective should be modified by an adverb. If I’m unhappy with someone, I tell him—not tell them. The antecedent is singular, so the direct object should be singular. And so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
But wait a minute: where do we get our notion of what is correct?
Well, you ask someone. If I’d check with any English teacher (well, at least most English teachers), they’d tell me I’m right. The rules that make me grimace when I hear them trampled on have been set up by ….
But again: who set up those rules? When? Where? And why do I care?
KJV, RSV, NSRV, NLT
Fridland provides a fascinating history of how English developed. It wasn’t a group of people somewhere, once upon a time. Language development is gradual. It’s why we have trouble reading Shakespeare, or why people who learn English as adults aren’t all that comfortable with the King James Version.
I heard Bruce Metzger, who was behind both the RSV and NRSV translations, explain why changes were needed for the RSV. For example, Psalm 50:9 in the RSV: “I will accept no bull from your house.” In 1956 that was fine. In 1984, not so much. Language changes.
As I listened to the Toastmaster speech, and then read Fridland’s book, I could feel my rigid language posture loosening up a little. After all, doesn’t the Bible say, “Don’t be too good or too wise!” (Ecclesiastes 7:16, NLT)?
The Bible said it
While I’m questioning who made the rules: why does it matter if the Bible says it? Could something still be good advice even if I couldn’t find it in the 66 books of the Protestant canon? In the same way that I can ask how I got the idea that the powers that be look down on people who end sentences with prepositions, where did I get the idea that a quote from Ecclesiastes carries a punch that a quote from sources outside “the 66” doesn’t carry?
Fridland notes that we haven’t been around to see the messy way our language evolves, so we accept what we’ve inherited as the right way and some of us roll our eyes when the right way isn’t followed.
Let me suggest a parallel with what we regard as inspired writings. We’ve belatedly discovered that Ellen White had a variety of helps in coming up with her writings, leading some to question her inspiration—even while they quote Ecclesiastes as though it were a dictation from heaven with no idea that its final form was preceded by a checkered past.
Most Christians have no idea what such terms as redaction and documentary hypothesis mean—but they’re all things that happened to the Bible. We want to take it just as it reads, accepting that the Bible (or at least our favorite passages in it) are God’s words—and don’t you dare say anything to suggest that it isn’t!
I’m a lifelong vegetarian but I’ve heard that sausage tastes better if you don’t know the process involved in producing it.
Same for the English language. Same for the Bible.
Intrinsic, extrinsic
As we grow up we learn that we need to follow what the authorities say, for a variety of reasons. We don’t want a spanking. We don’t want to get kicked out of school. We want good grades. We don’t want to be fired from a job. We don’t want to go to prison.
Later, we learn that some rules can be broken without punishment. Maybe we we’re unlikely to get caught, or the authorities are lenient. At that point, rule keeping becomes a matter of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation.
Extrinsic motivation refers to situations when I do or don’t do something because of what someone else wants. Someone else’s wants or demands override my own wants, whether that someone is the Bible or Toastmasters or the rules for cultured English speaking.
Intrinsic motivation, on the other hand, is about the thrill I desire from an action. The benefit is independent of someone else’s blessing—I will get the internal reward I desire even if someone else is unhappy.
I follow the rules that I learned long ago, and I haven’t wanted the discomfort that comes from breaking such rules, even if I never meet an enforcer. I don’t end sentences with prepositions because I learned a long time ago that I’m not supposed to.
Oops! Did you notice that that sentence breaks the rule?
Formal writing is usually expected to follow strict rules. But Valerie Fridland has taught me to lighten up. I don’t care what rule making body dictates that it is an egregious crime to end sentences with prepositions, I no longer feel bound to make that rule maker happy.
(To a complaint about ending a sentence with a preposition, Winston Churchill is reputed to have said, “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.” Turns out it wasn’t a Churchill original, no matter how many people claimed it was—but it’s still an enviably witty line.)
My point is that many of our rules, both grammatical and exegetical, should be understood as somewhat arbitrary. Human beings (and the Bible is clear that human beings, inspired by God but still human, wrote the words of Scripture) are imperfect in our expression. As highly as you and I regard Scripture, it isn’t flawless, and wasn’t meant to be. It can be proven, without a great deal of effort, that Bible writers copied from one another, that their words were edited by subsequent writers, and that there are even contradictions between some parts of Scripture and others.
That doesn’t make the Bible any less God’s word. But it should make us less rigid in our interpretations, and more forgiving of those who see things differently than you and I do.
As for me: I’m going to be less beholden to the grammar gurus when I make my next Toastmasters speech!
Mark Gutman has served the church as a pastor, an elementary school teacher, and an accountant. He’s now is on the administrative staff of Adventist Today.
