ENGLISH PROSE STYLE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 935, 12 July 1957, Page 13

ENGLISH PROSE STYLE

THE PATTERN OF ENGLISH, by G. 8H. Vallins; Andre Deutsch, N.Z. price 15/-. OW much formal grammar should be taught in our schools? If Shakespeare wrote "between you and I" and sometimes used a misrelated participle, should the student be penalised for taking similar liberties? What authority, if any, does English usage from time to time acknowledge? These are familiar questions to English teachers; and most of them will know Mr. Vallins’s earlier books. In this latest study he gives us a useful historical outline of the development of the English prose sentence from King Alfred to modern broadcast script. He traces the decay of inflexion, indicates the basic word order that survived it, and illustrates successive attempts to legislate for English practice from Ben Jonson and Dryden, through the 18th century grammarians, to Cobbett and the post-Fowler school. This is a "background" book rather than a manual of instruction; but it includes a chapter of examples of formal analysis, and a brief essay that is a sort of manifesto or order of the day for contemporary grammarians, Many teachers would like to tighten up on modern informality: not all of them will agree with Mr. Vallins’s approach. But he has the great advantage, shared by most writers on this subject since Chambers, of appreciating the basic continuity of our prose style from Old English times. It is clear that all teachers of English should know some Anglo-Saxon: if they do not, the translated examples in this little book will help them. It may be recommended to all advanced students. and to teacher

training colleges in particular.

J.

B.