A few weeks ago I wrote on the grand old rule about not ending sentences with prepositions, which is, quite simply, a long-lived hoax we’d best relegate to history.
In that light, I’d like to dismantle the powerful but hopeless idea that language is something to be judged rather than observed.
It can be hard to process, within the bounds of our lifetimes, the randomness of our take on what “proper” language is.
I’m thinking of this now as I finally read “Little Women,” which everybody but me seems to have read and which seems to generate another movie version every 10 minutes.
Meg to Laurie at a ball says, “Take care my skirt don’t trip you up.”
Persons:
Jo, Amy, prim, “, Meg, Laurie, ”
Locations:
England