For Authors: Wherefore Art Thou, Author?

This week: Wherefore Art Thou, Author?

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I owe a huge debt to people I've met on Writing.Com. There are the readers, of course, but also the people who have shared critiques and reviews. Writing these newsletters has been one way I've tried to repay that debt.

But, alas, I've run out of new and interesting topics. It's time to step aside and make room for new voices and new ideas, so this is my final For Authors newsletters, at least for now.

Thank you all for reading. I hope you've enjoyed these newsletters as much as I've enjoyed writing them. I'll still be around WDC, so please keep in touch!!!

We all know the famous scene. Juliette stands in her balcony and peers out into her manicured garden below, asking Romeo, “Where are you?” Yet, as the scene evolves, they have a conversation about what it means to be a Montague, and it becomes obvious that Romeo is standing right there, next to her. So, what’s going on? Is she blind, or maybe stupid? Or was there a jump in time, missing action, where Romeo clambered up a vine and stepped into the balcony? In a movie, we’d see that all happening, but here it’s just a continuity error. Maybe Shakespeare wasn’t such a genius after all.

Well, no, he was a genius. And no, this is not a continuity error. The fault, dear reader, is not in our star (Shakespeare), but in ourselves. In Shakespeare’s day, the word “wherefore” did not mean where, it meant why. She’s asking him an existential question: Why are you Romeo? That frames the whole ensuing conversation and gives it depth.

Indeed, later in the play she asks, “How cam'st thou hither. / Tell me, and wherefore?” She knows where he came: hither. She’s asking why he came there.

The problem is that languages—all languages—change over time. Written languages change more slowly that those that are only oral—of the six thousand or so human languages currently in use, only about two hundred have a written form. But the point is that languages change over time. It’s unavoidable.

These changes in English, from Early Modern English to how we speak today, can obscure even Shakespeare’s genius. I mean, can you really figure out what’s happening in The Tempest? The play starts out with some dude shouting, “Hiegh, my hearts! Cheerly, cheerly my hearts. Yare! Yare!” Why is he yelling his sweethearts? After all, apparently they are already cheery. And what does “yare” mean, anyway? It kind of goes downhill from there.

The thing is, if I were reading, say, an Italian translation of this play, it would make sense because it would use modern Italian, which I can kinda-sorta puzzle out. But the play we see performed uses Early Modern English, which is full of words and expressions that either make no sense or have acquired different, modern connotations. What he’s really saying is something like, “Come on, my lads! Cheer up, my lads! Quickly! Quickly!”

Consider, for another example, the word “merely.” We use it to indicate that something is trivial, as in “this is merely weak tea.” In Early Modern English, it meant the opposite: it meant “completely” or “utterly.” The famous “All the world’s a stage” speech from As You Like It ends by describing old age and death as “mere oblivion.” The intent here is not that “oblivion” is trivial but rather that it’s total and complete. That’s the exact opposite of how a modern reader—or listener—hears it.

Beowulf is in Old English, and is even more incomprehensible. If you’ve ever heard anyone read the original, it sounds like German or Dutch. Everyone except scholars reads it in translation.

Okay. Language changes over time. Pronunciation changes, too. There’s the “Great Vowel Shift,” from the 1400s to the 1600s, where the sound of all long vowels in English changed and, coincidentally, some vowels became silent. “Name,” for example, started out being pronounced “nahh-muh” with a soft “ahh” sound and the terminal “e” sounded (as it would be in German). At the end of the vowel shift, it became “naym,” with “e” silent and the long “a” as we now say it. This was all part of the evolution from Middle English to Early Modern English and explains the chaotic spelling rules in English.

Another way English has changed is the word “you.” In Shakespeare’s day, there was a “familiar” form of you, “thou,” while “you” was a more formal and polite form. In the plays, one can deduce relationships between characters by how they address each other, with “thou” implying a more intimate relationship. Of course, this is yet another subtlety modern ears miss. Today, “thou” evokes medieval times and courtly love or maybe a sermon in church, and it thus sounds more formal to our ears—the exact opposite of Shakespeare’s intent.

As thou/you changed, we lost some words in the process. For example, the plural of “you” was, at one time, “ye,” just as “he/him” and “she/her” have a plural “they/them.” We never hear “ye” today except maybe from Scotty on Star Trek, and for him it was supposed to mark a quaint Scottish accent, not second person plural.

Of course, in spoken English it’s not uncommon for people to insert a vernacular form of second person plural. Obviously, “you all” is one such, but so is “youse” in the Bronx or Boston. If youse are like me, ya’ll probably agree some form of these will eventually work their way into written English.

Another way that English is changing today is the singular “they,” used when the gender of the antecedent is unknown or unspecified. The default in, say, 1950s English, was to use “he” in that case, but “they” has become common in both oral speech and in grammatical style guides.

Which brings me to a broader topic, “Blackboard English.” The refers to a whole set of rules that are supposed to constitute the correct way to speak, write, and spell English. This started in earnest in 1762 with Robert Lowth’s A Short Introduction to English Grammar, and continued with Lindley Murray, a Quaker lawyer whose grammar books earned him the title of Father of English Grammar. We get from these two eighteenth century mavens rules against double-negatives, split infinitives, ending sentences in with a preposition, and hundreds of other proscriptive rules. If they had actually read Shakespeare, they would have corrected his many grammatical “errors” such as the prolific use of double negatives. Lowth insisted that a two no’s are a yes, which is correct from a logical perspective. But language isn’t about symbolic logic, it’s about emotional logic, where a double negative emphasizes the negation instead of nullifying it.

I strive to write clear sentences. That usually also means writing grammatical sentences, but I don’t believe we should follow grammatical rules over a cliff like lemmings. Sentences should be clear, but it’s also nice if they have a certain grace and charm. Nice, by the way, for Shakespeare meant foolish or ignorant, not pleasant, as we use it today. For me, correct English is English that communicates, no matter what flavor or dialect it uses. Each flavor of English has rules that are correct for that flavor.

Regardless of flavor, we don't need rulebooks for most things--no one would say "Boy dogs the likes," or even "Boy the likes dogs." We don't need a rule book to tell us that articles like "the" precede the noun, or that English word order is subject-verb-object (although it used to be more like Romance and Germanic languages, which tend to be subject-object-verb). We all understand the difference between "THE boy likes dogs" and "A boy likes dogs" without knowing the pedantic defintions of an indefinite and definite articles.

In short, when it comes to rules? We don’t need no stinking rules. All we need is our own unique and human voice. All flavors of English are "correct," and there is no "proper" form. There are privileged forms, but that's another topic.

Just as words change, so does grammar. Arcana like split infinitives, double negatives, and dangling participles are rules we don’t have to put up with. Excuse, me, “ rules up with which we need not put.” We also don’t have to put up with eighteenth century scolds who thought English was “bad” because it doesn’t have declensions like Latin or Greek. English, like every language, evolves. The only languages that don’t evolve are those that are no longer spoken.

Take, for another example, the difference between “infer” and “imply.” This particular error makes me cringe whenever I hear it, yet increasingly the two words are used interchangeably. I’m guessing that before long, anyone thinking there’s a difference will seem silly. For Shakespeare, by the way, silly meant innocent or helpless, not foolish or clownish. Words change, so infer and imply will probably change, too. In fact, it’s happening right now.

Reading the title, you might be asking, wherefore art thou, you author guy? If you’re asking why I’m an author, the answer is I can’t help it. Putting words on the page is a habit, or maybe an addiction. In any case, no day is complete without writing.

If you’re asking where I’m going, well, I’m staying right here, on WDC. It’s my main home for writing. But this is my swan song as an editor of this newsletter. My first For Authors newsletter was on the singular they, "For Authors Newsletter (March 11, 2020)"

, back in March of 2020. As this newsletter shows, I’m repeating myself.

After six years, I’ve kind of run out of new or interesting things to say, so I’m stepping away, at least for now. It’s been a fun ride. I hope at least some of you have enjoyed it along with me. Thank you for reading.

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