The sense of Harper Lee's sentence is something like this:
It would have been more accurate for me to say "built in spite of them" than "built around them."
The shorter form that she actually uses is coherent and error-free, although her intent might have been more obvious if (as ChrisW suggests) she had put quotation marks around "built in spite of them" or if (as Edwin Ashworth comments) she had italicized those words. But the deeper oddness of the sentence is that author says one thing and then immediately goes back (as it were) and critiques her own wording instead of altering that original wording. If the second wording is better, why didn't Lee just revise the first sentence to say "Another courthouse was built in spite of them"?
The answer is that the first wording is necessary to convey the idea of where and on what basis the new courthouse was built; the second sentence suggests that the surviving pillars made the design and building of the new courthouse harder, not easier—but without the earlier sentence it would have seemed bizarre to claim the old pillars had any complicating influence on the construction of the new courthouse.
So the sentence "It is better to say, built in spite of them" follows a rather perfunctory account of how and where the new courthouse was built with an allusion to the difficulty of building the new structure around the remains of the old. That sly Harper Lee may even have been using the courthouse as a neat little symbol of the puzzle the South has faced for generations (and not least in the mid-20th century when this book was written) of how to build an up-to-date society that incorporates certain incompatible and problematic remnants of its past.
With regard to Lee's choice of punctuation in this instance, guideline 11.47 in The Chicago Manual of Style, Fifteenth Edition (2003) seems relevant:
11.47 Unspoken discourse. Thought, imagined dialogue, and other interior discourse may be enclosed in quotation marks or not, according to context or the writer's preference.
[Example] "I don't care if we have offended Morgenstern," thought Vera. "Besides," she told herself, "they're all fools."
[Example] Why, we wondered, did we choose this route?
As for the use of a comma after say in her sentence, it follows from the standard rule to precede a short quotation with a comma. Chicago at 6.53 lays out this guideline:
6.53 Comma with quoted material. Quoted material, if brief, is usually introduced by a comma; if longer, by a colon [cross references omitted]. If a quotation is introduced by that, whether, or a similar conjunction, no comma is needed.
[Example] It was Emerson who wrote, "Blessed are those who have no talent!"
[Example] She replied, "I hope you are not referring to me."
In combination, guidelines 11.47 (quotation-like interior discourse represented without quotation marks) and 6.53 (comma after a verb introducing a quotation) seem to endorse Lee's handling of her sentence. Other style guides may differ, of course, and undoubtedly do on certain points.
The thing is the books.
As the preponderance of comments suggests, an appropriate way to describe the grammar of this sentence, along with a host of others just like it, is: it is aces:
Exclamation that expresses something as being exceedingly good.
Urbandictionary.com
Divorcing the reduced construction from its larger context might give some native speakers pause, because the reduction eliminates contextual signals of the idiomatic usage:
thing
noun
6 (the thing) informal Used to introduce or emphasize an important
point:
ODO
One might argue that the thing is the books is inappropriate for a formal lecture or paper, but one cannot argue that it is grammatically defective. The reduced expression is correct, and in its original context, it doesn't sound the least bit strange:
The only thing that I want you to hit right now is the books.
One might forgive an untrained writer for the erroneous proximity agreement, and even decipher the meaning of it in the full sentence:
*The only thing that I want you to hit right now ?are? the books.
But it is, in fact, erroneous proximity agreement between the verb and the predicative complement, as the reduced construction reveals:
*The thing ?are? the books.
It is one thing to forgive an error. It is quite another thing to teach an error, and the OP's rule may seem correct under cursory inspection, but it is spurious. Must the subject and subject complement match in number?
The only reason the thing is the books might sound strange is that our ears are more familiar with common predicative expressions of similar construction:
- The girls are musicians. But not: The girls are musician.
- The car is a clunker. But not: The car is [the] clunkers.
- The actors are men. But not: The actors are man.
Even if the vast majority of predicative complements happens to match the number of the subject, there is no universal syntactical rule requiring it. Consider how simple it is to generate exceptions to this imaginary rule:
- Taxes are the issue. Or The issue is taxes.
- The prices are my concern. Or My concern is the prices.
- The mosquitos are his problem. Or His problem is the mosquitos.
- Her clothes are the point. Or The point is her clothes.
- Flowers are today's subject. Or Today's subject is flowers.
In the five constructions above, mismatching the number of the subject and predicative complement works in both directions:
plural X are singular Y
AND
singular Y is plural X.
The reason is quite simple: regardless of which is the subject, the predicative syntax cooperates with the semantics of the singular noun to put the plural noun in a single collective bucket. An idiomatic usage of the thing exerts the same collectivizing influence on the books:
- The books are the thing. Or The thing is the books.
The thing is singular, and the writer has chosen to equate the books with the thing. Apparently, the writer intends the reader to recognize the collective nature that turns the books into the thing. Should the reader respect the intentions of the writer, or cast pseudo-grammatical insults at the writer?
Prescriptive grammarians presume to keep our language "manageable" by giving arbitrary orders to native speakers. Deep in their intuitive understanding of how English really works, native speakers know better, but tragically, they cave in to the intimidation of seventy-five-cent obfuscations like morphosyntactic plurality conflict. [People who can say such big words with presumptive authority probably know more than us, right?]
Since there is no morphosyntactic plurality conflict in the sentence, what is it that bothers the prescriptive grammarian? It is the words, the intelligent arrangement of the words, and the intelligent speaker's refusal to fill the erroneous prescription. Please notice the previous sentence:
It is the words [that bother the prescriptive grammarian].
We might call it a dummy-subject, but it is singular, because the larger context invited it to match the interrogative what is it. The syntax of English requires the verb to match the singular subject with the singular form: is. After that, the predicative complement offers an intelligent answer to the question: the words bother the prescriptive grammarian. Again, notice how the larger context welcomes the plural words, because a long list of perfectly intelligent constructions irritates prescriptive grammarians.
The coup de grâce for the prescriptive grammarian's imaginary morphosyntactic plurality conflict is that the sentence answers the question with a compound complement in addition to a plural complement:
It is the words, the intelligent arrangement of the words, and the intelligent speaker's refusal to fill the erroneous prescription.
Semantics is about the meaning of words. Syntax is about the intelligent arrangement of words in sentences. When native speakers understand they are not sick, they just refuse to fill the erroneous prescription. The thing is the books is not at all grammatically defective, and the prescriptive grammarian exposes his own ignorance of English grammar by asserting the imaginary defect.
Question 1: If we explain this phenomena [sic] in terms of notional vs
syntactic agreement, where does "grammatically correct/incorrect" fit
in?
The premise of contradiction is flawed. From grammar.about.com, the definition of notional agreement is:
Agreement (or concord) of verbs with their subjects and of pronouns
with their antecedent nouns on the basis of meaning rather than
grammatical form. Also known as synesis.
The singular verb is agrees with the subject, so it is agreement, not "notional agreement." Even if there were a universal syntactical rule requiring the agreement of the subject and the predicative complement, it would be a discrete rule with no hard and fast bearing on the agreement between subject and verb. Regardless, the predicative syntax operates with the semantics of the singular subject to collectivize the plural predicative complement.
Question 2: Can a simple sentence such as "The thing is the objects."
be grammatically incorrect while more complex sentences such as "The
thing is four pieces of driftwood glued together." be grammatically
correct? (The answer, in my mind, must be no; this is my conundrum.)
Although confused prescriptive grammarians might hope to salvage their sullied reputations, the simple sentence is just as correct as the more complex sentence, because in both situations, the predicative syntax operates with the semantics of the singular noun to collectivize the plural noun.
In the more complex sentence, the the semantics and syntax of the modifying phrase glued together reinforce the collectivization of the perfectly grammatical reduced expression: The thing is four pieces of driftwood. Please, notice that even this non-idiomatic use of The thing works quite well to break the imaginary rule about matching the number of subject and complement.
Question 3: Would it be better to say that Sentence 2.a has a low
level of (linguistic) grammaticality?
Since the expression is perfectly grammatical, it might be better to say that the prescriptive grammarian making such a claim has a low level of insight into English grammar.
Question 4: How about a low level of gradient well-formedness and that
it's semantically difficult to be (linguistically) acceptable?
Since the expression is well-formed and quite easy to understand, only a frustrated prescriptive grammarian refusing to abandon an imaginary rule would find it difficult to accept.
What is truly unacceptable is instructing students to break a real syntactic rule for the sake of applying a spurious rule. It would seem acceptable to lay out a descriptive rule for students: The subject complement normally agrees with its subject.
Question 5: Do we simply draw a hard line and say "The thing is the
objects." is 100% grammatically correct? I didn't particularly like
this option based on intuitive notions of "grammatically correct".
Intuition informed by error is erroneous intuition. Native English-speaking Everyman has drawn an intelligent intelligible line, and most intelligent people are delighted to talk and write on Everyman's side of the line. What is it that bothers the prescriptive grammarian?
It is semantics, syntax, and the intelligent speaker's refusal to fill an erroneous prescription.
Best Answer
There is no must about grammar; you may use any formulation you want, and others will decide for themselves whether they think you right, wrong, or a pioneer.
There are, however, principles, one of which is that ambiguity is a bad thing in normal writing. Since 'She looked at me disgusted' might equally mean 'She looked at me, disgusted' or 'She looked at me disgustedly', it would be better to avoid it. But those of us who have left the classroom behind prefer to avoid saying "This is wrong", with or without the addition "Write out the correxct version 100 times."