It’s foolhardy to stop learning English grammar just like that

SOMETIME an English teacher’s suggestion English speaker, one has to stop learning grammar rules. My immediate response was that it was just an attention-getting generalization. Indeed, when I checked the improvement program.

Of course it would be foolhardy for English- language learners tostop learning Englishgrammar

both written and spoken English, there simply are too many things to learn about its proper usage— vocabulary, semantics, syntax, structure, pronunciation, idioms,

fact, to master any language other than one’s mother tongue, no “stop- this- stop- that” approach would work.

Let me share with you some thoughts that I wrote in this column many years ago about the danger of not having a good grounding in English grammar despite learning to speak English well:

There was a lovely Filipina guest on a local TV show who her own mind. I thought she’d know better because practically all dictionaries consider “irregardless” an abomination. As the doublenegative for the adjective “regardless,” it has been roundly condemned for its logical absurdity.

word “regard”—the the out to yield a positive meaning.

before an

after a word means “without” or “none.”) “Irregardless” is therefore not the same as “regardless,” which means “without regard or consideration for,” “in spite of,” or “despite.”

“Irregardless” is thought to have started in the United States as an improper blend of “irrespective” and “regardless,” and as states, that word “has no legitimate antecedents in either standard or nonstandard varieties of English.” In short, it is a big bugaboo, a goblin of a word.

Which brings us to the question: Shall we tolerate “irregardless” even if we know that it’s nonstandard and unacceptable English? Shall we condone its usage simply because some people who speak English well use it without blushing?

My feeling is that if we do, we might as well admit into Standard English usage such grammatical bugaboos as “abolishment” for “abolition,” “recognizement” for “recognition,” and “supposively” for “supposedly.” And while we are at it, we might as well gracefully accept such widespread grammatical travesties as “taken cared of” for “taken care of,” “the reason is because” for “the reason is that,” “that is to your according” for “that is what you say,” and “presently” for “right now” and not for “soon,” “before long,” or “shortly.” Some broadcasters and not a few of our friends and associates commit these booboos with even more disturbing frequency, but at least we can be sure that they are far lesser grammatical crimes than “irregardless.”

So, everyone who aspires to achieve impeccable English will be one step nearer that goal by similarly banishing “irregardless” from their vocabulary for life, and I must add here that it’s a patently wrongheaded notion to stop learning grammar rules just to be able to speak English better.

(Next:

‘All’ can actually mean ‘ totality,’ ‘ everything’ or even

)