Talk:Common English usage misconceptions/Archive 3: Difference between revisions

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'''comment'''. "List of English words with disputed usage" is already at 86,216 bytes. A merge with "Common English usage misconceptions" results in an article of approximately 124,000 bytes, generally considered suitable for a split. The former appears to pertain to specific words, while the latter to usage/practices. [[User:Mannanan51|Mannanan51]] ([[User talk:Mannanan51|talk]]) 20:07, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

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== Unsourced "sources" section ==

Moving the below material from the article here since it apparently has been in the article without a source for nearly four years. If someone wants to find a source, the material could be returned. --[[User:Airborne84|Airborne84]] ([[User talk:Airborne84|talk]]) 02:29, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

===Sources===

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Though there are a variety of reasons misconceptions about correct language usage can arise, there are a few especially common ones with English. Perhaps the most significant source of these misconceptions has to do with the pseudo-scholarship of the early modern period. During the late [[Renaissance]] and early modern periods the vernacular languages of Western Europe gradually replaced Latin as a literary language in many contexts. As part of this process scholars in Europe borrowed a great deal of Latin vocabulary into their languages. England's history was even more complex in that, because of the [[Norman conquest]], English borrowed heavily from both [[Anglo-Norman language|Norman French]] and [[Latin]]. The tendency among language scholars in England was to use Latin and French concepts of grammar and language as the basis for defining and prescribing English. Because French had for so long been seen as the language of the nobility, there was a tendency to see cases where English-language usage differed from French (and/or Latin) as ignorance on the part of English speakers. For example, in Germanic languages like English many words that can be used as prepositions (e.g., "Are you going ''with'' me?") can also be used as special verb modifiers (e.g., "Are you going ''with''?"). French (like Latin, for the most part) does not have these particle words, so using a preposition in any context except as a preposition was seen as wrong (including ending a sentence with one). Similarly, because in French and Latin infinitives are a single word (as opposed to two in English), placing an adverb in the middle of an infinitive was seen as incorrect.

Many other misconceptions arise from over-application of advice that is beneficial in some cases but not all. For example, overuse of [[passive voice]] in writing can cause a passage to sound weak and, in some cases, less clear. But it does not follow, and is not true, that the passive voice is wrong or inferior in all cases.