Wikipedia

Wikipedia:No pet peeve wars

Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia, involving the work of English speakers from all walks of life and from across the globe. In order for collaboration to work it requires everyone to act constructively and to try to avoid needlessly antagonizing or annoying both the readers and other editors.

Many writers have pet peeves. Phrases or words that annoy them or which they consider to be inferior or incorrect usage. Sometimes such pet peeves are based on widely accepted norms for language use, and sometimes they aren't. Many grammatical and style pet peeves are actively contested among competent English writers, with some writers considering the rules prohibiting them to be antiquated or silly, and others considering them to be sensible and important to maintain.

Grammatical rules that are under discussion by competent English writing professionals include, but are not limited to, "split infinitives", "prepositions at the end of a sentence", the phrase "comprised of", the phrase "due to", "singular they", the phrase "he and she", the use of generic masculine pronouns, the passive voice, etc.

Some editors may argue that employing a grammatical usage that is actively contested is a potential affront to readers who may consider it to be among their pet peeves. This would mean that any usage of a contested phrase should be removed since it might cause discomfort in some readers. This argument is reasonable, but accepting it means that all potential pet peeves should be considered reasonable and be enforced. It also begs the question about when to accept potential annoyance to the reader and when not. And also the question of what to do when both usages may be potentially annoying: Some readers, for example, are annoyed by the use of gender neutral constructions such as singular they or "he and she", whereas others are equally annoyed by the use of the masculine as a generic. This argument also ignores that writers are frequently annoyed by having their language "corrected" when by their own view the usage in question is not wrong. In fact enforcing one's pet peeves on others frequently cause conflicts, that are potentially disruptive among editors - so not choice is neutral.

This means that we need a set of rules of thumb for how to approach the question of style and grammar corrections and pet peeves in order to avoid that these issues evolve into conflict and disruption. This essay suggests the following rules of thumb as a commonsense approach to avoid conflict over conflicting pet peeves.

  1. If your pet peeve is one of the contested grammar rules, you should avoid enforcing it on articles you haven't contributed to.
  2. Style changes that are contested also require consensus, don't editwar to enforce your pet peeve
  3. It is courteous to respect the style choices of the main contributor of an article. If your change is reverted, you should not introduce it again without consensus on the talkpage.

List of contested grammar rules

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Contested grammar rules are those rules that can be considered correct or incorrect depending on which grammar authority one uses. That is in these cases both uses can reasonably considered "correct", and both uses can be found in the usage of competent and professional English language authors.

  • Split infinitives are always to be avoided vs. split infinitives are fine as long as they don't make sentences too hard to parse.[1][2]
  • Beginning a sentence with a conjunction such as "and" or "but".[3][4]
  • Using the phrase "comprised of" is always to be avoided, vs. it can be used instead of "composed of".[5][6]
  • The passive voice should always be avoided vs. the passive voice should be used sparingly and in appropriate contexts.[2][7]
  • Contractions should always be avoided in formal written English.
  • Sentences should never end with a preposition.
  • Dangling modifiers should always be avoided.
  • "Due to" can only be used as an adjective (e.g. "the cancellation was due to"), but not as a preposition (e.g. "Due to inclement weather, the party was canceled".
  • Oblique case pronouns "me/him/her" should never be used as a subject (intended to mean subject complement) of a sentence (e.g. "it was he" vs. "It was him").[8]
  • "Which" should only be used to introduce non-restrictive relative clauses (e.g. "The house, which was red, was destroyed" vs. "give that to Caesar which is Caesar's").
  • "Whom" should always be used as the oblique case of "who" (e.g. "Who did you see?" vs. "whom did you see").

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "The American Heritage Dictionary". Houghton Mifflin. 2014. Retrieved 10 April 2015.
  2. ^ a b Pullum, Geoffrey K. (17 April 2009). "50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice". The Chronicle Review. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 28 May 2011.
  3. ^ Garner, Bryan A. (2003). Garner's Modern American Usage. New York: Oxford University Press. "It is rank superstition that this coordinating conjunction cannot properly begin a sentence." p. 44.
  4. ^ Burchfield, R. W., ed. (1996). Fowler's Modern English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 53, 121 "The widespread public belief that But should not be used at the beginning of a sentence seems to be unshakeable. Yet it has no foundation.""
  5. ^ "The American Heritage Dictionary". Houghton Mifflin. 2014. Retrieved 10 April 2015.
  6. ^ Steven Pinker (2014). The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. New York: Viking. p. 263. ISBN 978-0-670-02585-5.
  7. ^ Fogarty, Mignon (22 July 2010). "Active Voice Versus Passive Voice". Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. Retrieved 28 May 2011. passive sentences aren't incorrect"..."If you don't know who is responsible for an action, passive voice can be the best choice.
  8. ^ Bauer, Laurie; Trudgill, Peter, eds. (1998). "16". Language Myths. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-026023-6.
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