Nonsense ‘Carries Through’
the Anglophonic World
By Jon N. Hall
Before native speakers of the
English language try to master the split infinitive, the passive voice, or the
mysteries of the subjunctive mood, they might learn how to use conjunctions. Many
Anglophones, even the highly educated, often don’t know which conjunction to
use. One of the main reasons for this sad state of affairs is that for nearly a
century, language experts, the guardians of our mother tongue, have been
promoting a few bad ideas. I’m here to help.
The rules of English language
usage shouldn’t just codify the usage and logic of casual conversation. But
that seems to be the case in a rule propounded by none other than Bryan A.
Garner, usage expert par excellence.
In my copy of the 2003 edition of the celebrated Garner’s Modern American Usage, all that one finds in the entry for the conjunction “or” is this: “See and/or.” Garner’s entry for “and/or” is
sound. Where we find the unfortunate rule for “or” is, oddly, in the entry for
“nor.” A quick search of the Fourth Edition (2016) reveals on page 632
that Garner has retained his rule:
B. For or. When the negative of a clause
or phrase has appeared at the outset of an enumeration, and a disjunctive
conjunction is needed, or is
generally better than nor. The
initial negative carries through to all the enumerated elements.
“Generally better,” you say?
If “a
disjunctive conjunction is needed,” then of course “or” would be the right
word. That’s because “or” is disjunctive while “nor” isn’t. Not only that, but these two function
words have markedly different
functions. One might think that a prescriptivist
like Garner would say that one of them is correct and the other one isn’t.
In his entry for “not,” Garner doubles down: “B. Not … nor. This
construction should usually (when short phrases or clauses are involved) be not
… or.” At the end of this section,
Garner doubles back: “See nor
(B).”
Garner’s rule is nonsense.
English conjunctions do more than merely connect; they specify how many of the
elements within an enumeration are to be included. “Or” stipulates (at least)
one, and “nor” stipulates none. Nonetheless, language experts contend that
these two rather different words are interchangeable under negation. What I’ll
focus on is the second sentence of the quote, as the notion that an “initial
negative carries through” is the cause of the error.
If an “initial negative
carries through,” then wouldn’t an initial positive (i.e. affirmation) also carry through? Of course, affirmation is
the default; it doesn’t require an “initial positive.” But no usage expert
would say that when affirmation is applied to an enumeration that the elements
can be connected by “nor.” Imagine an airline stewardess asking you, Coffee,
tea, nor milk? Or imagine the cashier
at your grocery asking, Paper nor
plastic? That’s crazy talk! Just because negation “carries through” doesn’t
mean that we can use any old conjunction.
Garner’s rule appeared in
nearly identical language at least as early as 2000; specifically on page 230 of
his The Oxford
Dictionary of American Usage and Style. So the rule along with its “initial negative carries through” position
has been proliferating. Garner may have gotten this idea from H.W. Fowler, who writes
of “negative force” “carrying on.”
On July 5 of 2009, linguist Arnold
Zwicky quoted Garner’s rule in its entirety in his blog post “Emphatic nor,” where he takes Sarah Palin to task for this: “I’ve
never believed that I, nor anyone else, needs a title to do this.”
Zwicky contends that Palin’s
use of “nor” isn’t “non-standard,” but that he would “probably” have used “or”
nonetheless. One of the persistent problems of so many language experts is
their choice of examples to illustrate with. Quite often they choose examples
that are simply inapposite to whatever they’re trying to prove, and that seems
to be the case here. By setting off “nor anyone else” with commas, isn’t Palin
creating a parenthetical phrase? If so, Palin’s statement does not contain an enumeration and
therefore cannot be used to illustrate Garner’s rule.
Would
that it were so simple that all one had to do is substitute the right word and
all would be well. But what’s really needed in many of the examples language
experts use is a rewrite. Here’s how to rewrite Ms. Palin to avoid our
difficulties altogether: I’ve never
believed that anyone needs a title to
do this.
Mr. Zwicky goes on to dilate
on Garner’s rule thus: “the initial negative carries through to all the
enumerated elements (so that the negation need not be repeated; though Garner
doesn’t say this, the suggestion is that later negation is redundant).” But
“neither-nor” is repeated negation, and it is well accepted. Zwicky also
writes: “Sometimes in cases of variation within the standard, MWDEU
ends up telling the readers that they can use whichever variant sounds best to
them in the circumstances.”
The Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage that Zwicky cites is
putting out some bad advice, at least on this issue. Going by whichever “sounds
best” is precisely the problem, as our “ears” have been corrupted by a century
of bad grammar advice. Many folks simply do not hear the illogic.
… you should use “or” to continue the negative thought because according
to Bryan Garner “the initial negative carries through to all the enumerated
elements” (5). For example, when you use the word “not,” the structure “not A
or B” is correct. You’d have to say, “He is not interested in math or science”;
“He is not interested in math nor science” won’t work.
I’d say that what Ms. Mills
isn’t very interested in is logic. To illustrate her grasp of how an “initial negative carries
through,” let’s rewrite Mills’ sentence
by actually carrying her subject and
its predicate through to the
alternative: He is NOT interested in math OR he is NOT interested in science.
That rewrite is a fair equivalent of Mills’ “correct” sentence, and it’s
doubtful that it expresses her intent. What Mills probably intends is: He is
interested in neither math nor science; that neither A nor B be the
case. But by employing “not … or,” we don’t know whether he isn’t interested in math or science or
both.
In a 2010 memorandum
out of the Colorado General Assembly we read on page 2 (item 4) that “the new
constitutional provision does not apply to, affect, or prohibit.” If there were
no negative and it read “[does] apply
to, affect, or prohibit,” normal folks would ask: Well, which is it, is it
apply to, affect, or prohibit? And
get this: Garner’s rule was quoted in its entirety in the Technical Comments on
page 4 (item 6) of the memorandum.
The language of item 4 in the
memorandum was repeated in the text of
the ballot initiative, specifically subsection 2, which could have been
salvaged merely by changing “or” to “nor.” (Perhaps Coloradans defeated the ballot initiative because of its dearth of clarity.)
The main reason Garner’s rule
is wrong is likely because it doesn’t support what he wants, which can be
deduced from reading the examples he uses to illustrate his rule. Consider
Garner’s first example: “There have been no
bombings nor [read or] armed attacks.” Surely what’s
intended could be expressed like this: There
have been neither bombings nor armed attacks.
It’s quite evident that the
issue Garner is addressing is not disjunction, but instead what logicians call
“joint denial.”
What he intends is to negate/deny all
the “elements” in his “enumerations,” not just one. My advice is that if one’s
intent can be expressed with “neither,” then one shouldn’t use “or.”
Here’s what’s pathetic: If
one were to take Garner’s advice and use “or,” then descriptivists would insist
that the “or” be interpreted as “and.” The issue here is one where both camps in the
on-going “Language Wars” are deficient, and it’s no way to oversee a language. Use
“nor,” kids.
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