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.

On page 2 of “When to Use ‘Nor’,” Bonnie Mills of Grammar Girl also quotes from Garner’s rule:

… 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.

Jon N. Hall of ULTRACON OPINION is a programmer from Kansas City.



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