Grammar Snobs May Be Wrong on These Rules

Many lawyers pride themselves on their mastery of language and don’t hesitate to correct others. Some of these grammar snobs read the book “Get to the Point” regularly, but even they might be mistaken about common rules.

Why “Hopefully” Can Start a Sentence

Grammar purists often object when a sentence begins with “hopefully.” They argue that a jury isn’t hoping anything at all; it is the person who put together this sentence who is doing the hoping. The text states that sentences should never start this way.

“Hopefully” is an adverb. As kids, we learned that adverbs modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs. But sometimes adverbs modify an entire sentence. When this happens, the word is called a sentence adverb. Common examples of sentence adverbs are: actually, unfortunately and presumably. Even grammar snobs have been known to use sentence adverbs this way.

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When “Gift” Becomes a Verb

Modern dictionaries recognize “gift” as a transitive verb, meaning it takes an object such as “the house.” We have long used the passive verb form to say someone with exceptional talent is gifted. Certainly, “give” continues to work perfectly well. But it’s fine to use “gift” as a verb.

“Decimate” Means Destroy, Not Just 10%

Traditional grammarians wince at using “decimate” to mean “completely destroy.” They point out the word’s Latin origins, where it referred to a Roman military punishment of killing one in ten people for a communal infraction. The prefix “deci” means ten, so using it to mean total annihilation when it can only refer to the destruction of one-tenth just seems wrong.

And yet “decimate” appeared as early as the 1660s to refer to destruction of a large part, unrelated to the one-tenth fraction. No less an authority than Bryan Garner, author of Black’s Law Dictionary, has decreed that using “decimate” to mean inflicting large-scale destruction is now universally accepted. He also notes that the only ones not accepting the transformation are pseudo-snoot eccentrics.

Starting Sentences with Conjunctions

Conjunctions connect words, phrases and clauses. Clauses, which have a subject and verb, could be sentences on their own, but an advocate might want to show a connection by joining them with one of the coordinating conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so. Too many such jointures produce a run-on sentence — and bores the message recipient. Yet there is nothing wrong with using one of those conjunctions to start a new sentence.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald did it in “The Great Gatsby”: “And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Hans Christian Andersen did it in “The Emperor’s New Clothes”: “But the Emperor has nothing on at all!” English teachers traditionally forbade using a conjunction at the beginning of a sentence to prevent the creation of those run-on sentences. But your eloquent prosody may rely on that sentence structure. Go ahead.

Common Grammar Myths Debunked

Some popular usages are technically correct, yet they still annoy grammar snobs. Even if you use them, you do not have to adopt every accepted style. Hearing or reading these words can cause mental pain for those who are strict about rules.

It Is OK to “Go Missing”

English uses other versions of this construction, such as “the horse went astray.” Examples of the past tense of “go” to refer to passing into a certain condition are not unusual: The killer went mad. Missing is also a state or condition. So, yes, a person or thing can go missing.