ABSTRACT
The word ‘grammar’ itself is used in two very distinct ways: prescriptively and descriptively. Prescriptively, the term is used to prescribe how language should be used; descriptively the term is used to describe how the language actually is used. Prescriptive grammarians believe that English grammar is a fixed and unchanging series of rules which should be applied to the language. For prescriptive grammarians expressions like: I ain’t done nothing wrong, or We was going to the supermarket, are quite simply wrong. To understand this a bit better it is necessary to consider two other related questions that often get muddled up with grammar in the public discourse , and they are the question of style and the question of Standard English
Many complaints about incorrect grammar are actually complaints about style. Split infinitives are a case in point. There is nothing grammatically wrong with a sentence like: I am hoping to quickly finish writing this paragraph. It makes perfect sense, but it might be thought stylistically preferable to write: I am hoping to finish writing this paragraph quickly, or even to write: I am hoping quickly to finish writing this paragraph. However, if I were to write: Hoping writing I paragraph finish to quickly am, there would be something grammatically wrong with that!
