Grammar Rules

[Gaudio, Rudolf]

As I understand it, it was the College Board itself that had ignored the
obscure prescriptive-grammar rule, until a teacher noticed the "error" and
convinced the Board to adjust the scores of students who had NOT ignored it.


So in its effort to test students' command of prescriptive-grammar rules,
the College Board inadvertently demonstrated just how absurd those rules can
be.

Rudi Gaudio

-----Original Message-----
From: P. Kerim Friedman
To: linganth list
Sent: 6/5/03 8:27 AM
Subject: Grammar Rules

For anyone who missed it, this was an excellent article in last week's
Sunday Times by Linguist/Political Commentator, Geoffrey Nunberg, about
how "the College Board finally agreed to adjust the scores of students"
who had ignored an obscure grammatical rule-book rule.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/01/weekinreview/01NUNB.html

- kerim