Can you ever start a sentence with “but” or “and”? Are double negatives always wrong? And is it really a rule that you can never split an infinitive? In this class, unlearn what you have learned in your English classes and see that there’s a difference between a rule and a guideline, and that in most of the cases mentioned, you’re free to forget the rule entirely. Study these 5 English grammar myths and be the life of the party at your next gathering of friends by being the person who starts a conversation with “Hey, did you know that you can actually end a sentence with a preposition?” After watching this grammar lesson, don’t forget to check your understanding by completing the quiz at www.engvid.com/5-english-grammar-myths/
TRANSCRIPT
Hey, everyone. I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on "5 English Grammar Myths". So, these are five things that, if you went to an English-speaking high school, college, university, elementary school - you probably heard at some point from an English teacher or someone else, or your friends who heard it from an English teacher. So, today we are going to break down some of those things that you were told, and we will unlearn what you have learned. So, let's begin with number one.
Never start a sentence with "But" or "And", or other coordinating conjunctions you can extend this to. But why not? Or what? There are numerous examples in popular literature and even Holy Scripture where this rule is broken again and again and again. For example, in the story, The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans C.A. (Christian Andersen): "But the emperor has nothing at all!" Here you have a story by Francis Bacon in Of Death: "And what are you reading, Miss?" And, here, in the King James Bible: "Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance - these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils." So, as you can see, it is totally possible and it's unrealistic to expect people, especially in conversation, not to start sentences with "But" or "And" sometimes. Okay? It's a decent guideline for essay writing, but for speech, and for writing fiction and literature, it's... It just... It just doesn't happen. All right.
Number two: Don't end a sentence with a preposition. Now, a "preposition" is a word like: "at", "on", "in", "for", "by", "with", "against", and it shows a relationship of time or place between words. So, ideally, I think whoever came up with this myth thinks that, you know, you need another word after the preposition to show the relationship between the words. For example: "I'm excited about your birthday party", "I'm interested in music/video games", so you need something after that "in", you need something after that "about"; you can't just leave it just dangling at the end of a sentence.
Or can you? Let's look at some sentences where we do this all the time. So: "There's something I'd like to talk to you about." How about: "What kind of music do you listen to"? "To what kind of music do you listen?" - that's ridiculous. "What kind of music do you listen to"? "Which school do you go to?" I think you can see, here, that: "This is a rule you should be cautious of", you should be wary of, and maybe this is a rule you shouldn't care about. So let's continue to number three.
Double negatives are always wrong. Now, I kind of agree and I'm on board with the idea that we need to be careful when we use double negatives; the problem is when we say that they are always wrong. Now, in this case, if you have a phrase, a sentence, like: "I don't have nothing!" I agree; this is a bad sentence because it literally means: "I have something. I don't have nothing; I have something." So, if your meaning-your intended meaning-here, is that you have nothing, just say: "I have nothing." Okay? In that case, I agree, double negatives - not cool.
However, you can use double negatives if you want to emphasize something, like: "I can't not help people." So, imagine in... Maybe in a comic book, you have a superhero and they have these powers, and they need to help people, so they say: "I can't not help; I must help." It really makes it that much stronger to have the double negative there. "We couldn't not pay attention." Maybe the talk was very captivating or maybe it was very loud, so you were forced to pay attention. "We couldn't not pay attention; we had to pay attention." Also, double negatives are very often used in pop culture, specifically pop music, like this song here: "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone", something. Those are the only words I know, and I can't even sing them very well, so I'm going to continue to number four.
Never split infinitives - angry face. Now, for some reason, I guess people think that "to" plus base verb should always be together, and you cannot separate them because they're a compound unit of language that just sticks. […]