Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / April 2005

The language use is always changing. The actual use is more flexible
than the grammar book could cover. I'm a non-native speaker, and I
always find English could be so simply used when I come to Britain.

I agree.

That too.

I might with the inclusion of a qualifier:
"My car's left-rear door has a dent"

Got a couple of shockers for you, Jock. I am not French, but I have
heard of your grammar book. In addition, "the door of my car" was
used twenty years ago, but not significantly more so than today, that
is, "my car door" was just about as prevalent as it is today.

Language teachers do tend to get around, and I lived and worked in
Paris a few years ago. Unfortunately, when I left, I didn't take a
copy of your grammar book with me, so, well, I'm working from memory.

With a name like "Jock" which, incidentally, means something like
"sports nut" in English, I figured that you might be of French
extraction or working in France.

Down to the meat of it! Barbara Neal has in very clear and precise
terms answered your grammatical query. The posters on this thread have
replied enthusiastically and have given you a great deal of explanation
as well. If you got lost in the middle of all the explanations, though,
try this one on for size.

Prefer "car door," stay away from using "the door of my car" as
a primary form, and avoid using "car's door," except in qualified
circumstances such as "my Porsche's door," "my car's left
front door."

The issue you've inquired about is typically called "noun+noun
collocation" in the trade. Let's take it from the top.

We use the possessive form (a.k.a. genetive (the more highbrow formal
term)) most typically for people and animals. We use "the X of Y"
when dealing with things and ideas.

The kicker is that with more than a few "the X of Y" formations,
common usage has led to the adoption of common collocations that now
serve as primary forms for the terms in question. "Car door" is one
of them. You have heard others both on the subject of cars and
elsewhere, "windshield/windscreen wiper, dog collar, fish tank, cash
cow, chamber pot."

You will not be able to memorize ALL of these forms. Do not search for
wordlists that will answer your query. I recommend that you keep a
notebook and make a note of these expressions as you come across them,
which is, I am willing to believe, something that you already do.

This is a quickie explanation I would give an intermediate learner. It
is designed to get you looking at the problem as being something other
than hopeless. It is not a comprehensive explanation.

But it's probably all you need right now.

***

The reason I asked for the title of your grammar book is that something
in your first explanation ran a bell with me. I knew that I had seen
that explanation, in just about those words, before. I had and I
hadn't. Allow me to explain.

English books written by authors whose first language is not English
are typically peppered with liberal borrowings from the
English-language classics in the field. One of those books, from 1960,
is called _A Comprehensive English Grammar for Foreign Students_, by
C.E. Eckersley and J.M Eckersley, Longman. There was a time when this
was the very best teaching grammar sold in Europe, bar none. As I
recalled reading your email and seeing the familiar language, the
Eckersleys dealt with noun+noun collocation in a confusing way. I
figured that if you were familiar with the term "Saxon Genitive,"
which appears in the part of the book that deals with possessive forms,
you were dealing with either the aforementioned grammar or one based on
it.

_Grammaire anglaise de l'étudiant_ is very common on France, if I
remember aright. It's probably reasonably accurate and useful,
although my limited command of French prevented me from verifying that
for myself back in the days. I would not throw it away. You are
however, clearly at a stage in your language learning when you would
find great use in turning to a contemporary reference English grammar
written, in English, by a professional grammarian. Your best bet, and
one easily available in France, is _English Grammar in Use_, by Raymond
Murphy, Cambridge University Press. I would not buy a more advanced
grammar reference, most especially NOT Martin Hewling's ponderous
_Advanced Grammar in Use_, CUP, which will probably be next to Murphy
on the shelf or in the display. Murphy's book has just come out in a
third edition, which means that you should be able to pick up a second
edition in a used book store for a very reasonable price. In either
case, the sections that deal with the particular point under discussion
are Units 79-81 in the second edition and 80, 81, 83 in the third
edition.

***

If you are, as I suspect is probably true, interested in teaching
English either now or in the future, you should at some point also buy
a serious reference grammar. Right now, in France, I would go with
Michael Swan's _Practical English Usage_, which will give you some
real answers to your questions. You might also choose to invest in
Martin Parrot's absolutely fantastic _Grammar for English Language
Teachers_. Buying all of these books mentioned will set you back a
serious wad, in the neighborhood of eighty to ninety euros, but you
really shouldn't hold fast to your French grammar any more. Buy, at
least, EGIU. You can probably get a used second edition for less than
five euros.

***

For those posters who have held or might feel that buying any grammar
book at all or studying any formal grammar at all is a waste of money
and time for a foreign learner learning English abroad, because living
English grammar is so complex, rich and changeable that one cannot hope
to thoroughly master it through the dry-as-dust application of rules...

The issue of grammar teaching is, at the moment, a hot potato in ELT
practice. Generally speaking, I'm on the side of those who do teach
nasty, old-fashioned grammar, as is pretty much everyone else I've
met who responsibly ply this trade abroad. "No grammar"
methodologies are a nice pipe dream but not an option when you work
overseas, if you as a teacher are honest enough to shoulder your share
of the burden of the learning process.

On the issue of the problem with grammar books, well, it's very much a
matter of level for a foreign learner. I would not send any foreign
learners out to buy A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language or
a style manual like Fowler's Modern English Usage or Merriam-Webster's
Dictionary of English Usage, which is the kind of stuff those learners
will need to understand every single utterance of English they will
hear in their lifetimes, but insofar as going bareback into the
language, look Ma no grammar, well...

Homey don't play dat.