THE ILLOGICALITY OF THE ENGLISH RULES
Ganiu Abisoye Bamgbose, PhD.
What is today known as the English language was the linguistic conglomeration of three different German dialects. After the language came into existence, it still greatly got influenced by other globally significant languages such as Greek, Latin and French. English has not let gone of its legacy of borrowing as it has tapped into very many world languages to be, today, the language with the widest vocabulary. Even Yoruba has made its contribution to the width of the English language with the presence of words like agbada, dashiki and fufu in English dictionaries. Although too many cooks spoil the broth, the sweet broth called the English language is not spoilt by its borrowings. However, there are evident illogicalities in the English grammar which are consequences of the many cooks that prepared the broth.
I do not hope to discuss at what stages the different anomalies of the English language set in and what influenced such anomalous influx. This piece simply sets out to highlight some of the inconsistencies of the language which boasts of a robust orthography of its rules.
First, the pronoun “I” violates the basic rule of concord which states that a singular noun attracts a singular verb. In its case, aside its unique auxiliary verb form (am), the pronoun “I” is used with plural verbs as seen in sentences such as:
I sing.
I go to work everyday.
This is, of course, an inconsistency which language teachers simply present as an exception to the first rule of concord.
The pronoun “you” is another inconsistency of the English language as it attracts the plural verbs, both as a singular and as a plural pronoun. Only the context of use will tell when an expression such as “You are naughty” refers to an individual or a group of people.
The explanation for the use of subjunctives such as “it’s time”, “if”, ‘would rather” is a boring one that one can’t easily establish in the light of logic. The correctness of expressions such as:
It’s time we went
If he were here
I would rather you ate
is a very difficult task to explain convincingly in basic grammar classes.
Even in simple everyday conversations, justifying “How do you do?” as the response to “How do you do?” is somewhat beyond logic.
The safe conclusion is to say that the metamorphoses of the English language have rendered so many aspects of it unexplainably correct. Learners of the language, especially second language language learners, are therefore advise to learn the language as both a body of rules and a body of conventional and customary documents which can’t be explained in the light of rules.
(c) 2019 Ganiu Abisoye Bamgbose
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