Just Say No

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

it was an ordinary graduate seminar.  we were discussing arcane points
of theory and of english.  iin particular: "whose" and (interrogative)
"which", which i was discussing as interrogative words that didn't (for
many speakers) take postposed "else", because they are modifiers (with
omitted heads) rather than heads.

one student wrinkled his brow.  he was reminded of "this" and "that",
which he'd been taught in high school *never* to use on their own.
(always add a noun.)  i gaped at him, never having heard such a thing.
then two other students chimed in, with supporting stories.

mild pandemonium ("hemidemonium"?) ensued.  and then i saw what was
going on: it was yet another instance of Just Say No (a.k.a. If It's
Sometimes Ineffective It's Always Unacceptable)): people had seen that
bare "this" and "that" were often desperately unanchored in the context
of their students' writing, so they just told them not to use bare
"this" and "that" at all.  (you can't get cut if you never pick up a
knife.)

later i had an "aha" experience, when i understood the writing of a
student who persistently produced vague-referent "this one' and "that
thing" etc.  like my grad students, he'd been told *never to use "this"
or "that" without a following noun*.  one weeps.

the top-line handbooks are entirely clear about this; in fact, they
never actually state the proscription, but confront it crabwise.  both
MWDEU and garner's DMAU say quite clearly that the real proscription
(one of usage rather than grammar) is against ambiguity of reference in
context and remark that deictics don't have to have nouns immediately
following them.

i haven't looked at the firing-line handbooks on this point -- i have a
*very* large collection -- because i fear what i will see.

arnold, living briefly in innocent  (but suspicious)  bliss