I don’t want to give the impression, however, that I think it’s perfectly acceptable to write or speak however one wants, just because language is always changing. That isn’t my opinion at all. Rather, I think that clarity and precision of language are most important. Above all, language should ease and facilitate communication. So, as a general rule, I am in favor of anything that serves a valid and useful purpose in relation to this goal. Likewise, I am not in favor of things that are elitist, exclusionary, or traditionalist just for the sake of being so.

One example of something that I disagree with is the above website’s analysis of the word “cliché.” The author says, “One often hears young people say ‘That movie was so cliché!’ The standard expression is clichéd.” But the truth is, he’s being needlessly picky and is really just outright wrong. Dictionary.com, in a definition taken from the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, lists the second meaning for cliche as, “2. (in art, literature, drama, etc.) a trite or hackneyed plot, character development, use of color, musical expression, etc.” So, in fact, those “young people” are using the word perfectly correctly, in a manner that makes perfect sense, but not in a way that he finds pleasing.

Another example of annoying grammar advice is the frequently heard rule that it is incorrect to end a sentence on a preposition. In fact, this is perfectly acceptable in English and is often necessary for clarity. The Dictionary.com usage note for prepositions states (any capitalized emphasis is mine), “The often heard but misleading ‘rule’ that a sentence should not end with a preposition is transferred from Latin, where it is an accurate description of practice. But English grammar is different from Latin grammar, and the rule DOES NOT fit English. In speech, the final preposition is NORMAL and idiomatic, especially in questions: What are we waiting for? Where did he come from? You didn’t tell me which floor you worked on. [...] If the pronoun is ‘that,’ which cannot be preceded by a preposition, or if the pronoun is omitted, then the preposition MUST occur at the end: The librarian found the books that the child had scribbled in. There is the woman he spoke of.”

Anyway, I agree with you–it is a very fine line. As I said, the way that I try to draw that line for myself is by determining what I feel helps or hinders communication the most. Whatever most serves language’s goals of clarity and precision is what gets my support, whether that be the traditional wisdom or a newfangled way of doing things.

Keep coming back…your comments are so insightful and relevant. Your input is always appreciated.

Marriage is a social institution, and social institutions can be difficult to alter on a large scale. Fortunately, this particular institution has only two active members and everyone else is an outsider. The partners in a marriage have the option to choose how to shape their relationship and their future together. Outsiders will still perceive the couple according to their own schema regarding marriage, of course, and their actions will reflect that; if the spouses aren’t careful, those actions could influence their own perceptions of themselves and their marriage.

The deciding factor, though, is each individual’s recognition of those assumptions you’ve discussed, and his or her choice on how to handle those assumptions. I think being aware that husband and wife can be buzzwords is the first step to avoiding the stereotypes. Good on you for breaking free from the negative influences around you and being able to separate them from reality at such a young age. My parents’ bad influence was sort of insidious – I didn’t recognize how they had shaped some of my notions about marriage until I was considering it for myself. Of course, knowing what I know, I choose to have our relationship be reflective of only one thing: our relationship!

A good resource for looking up some of these types of errors can be found at the Common Errors in English website: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html

It’s a site run by someone out of Washington State University. I don’t agree with all of his “rules,” as I feel that there is sometimes more flexibility to certain aspects of English than he asserts, but I think that it’s a very good resource, nonetheless.

I’m realizing that wordpress doesn’t really have any way to make money with your blog (from advertising or other sources). Any recommendations for another service that does?

I felt from a very young age that the negative examples of marriage provided by my mother and her partners were not healthy or “normal.” I made such a conscious effort to remind myself not to take those examples to heart that I think it must have applied to the related terms, as well. That is, I tried so hard to keep marriage from being tainted for me that I likewise kept the words from being tainted.

In addition, because of my feminism, I have always felt that despite what expectations society may put on marriage, there is no reason that it should not be a respectful, happy, equal partnership. So, to me, marriage is like so many other things in life: a neutral concept that society has burdened with assumptions. And as with other things, I’ve done my best to keep society’s assumptions from becoming my own. Certainly, I have not succeeded utterly–that would be nigh impossible. But, in this case, at least, I’ve done all right.

I was amazed at how these simple words meant something different to each person I talked to. One friend felt that ‘wife’ implied submission and ‘husband’ dominance because of her religious upbringing. My partner, on the other hand, was raised in a home where wife and husband meant equality, passion, and great friendship. To my parents prior to their divorce, husband and wife implied a kind of grudging tolerance of your partner.

Obviously, I plan to adopt my partner’s interpretation of the words for our own marriage rather than my parents’ or my friend’s!