Phooey on the Grammar Nit-Pickers
70At Online Writing - Keep Your Grammar Tips to Yourself, Lisa HW went off into a minor rant over someone who wanted to correct her writing style. I left a short comment there and have expanded upon it here.
Lisa didn't give us the specifics of the criticism, and they really don't matter. If you are a writer and have never had anyone correct your style, well, you probably aren't really a writer.
Hemingway, Joyce, Virginia Woolf and many more real writers are guilty of bad grammar, poor sentence construction, creative punctuation and worse. At this point, your typical grammar Nazi will jump in and remind us that we are not Hemingway and probably will add that one needs to know the rules before one can break them.
No. You need to know how to reach your readers. If you know that, you don't need to know anything else.
Small minds need rules
Rules are for people who need them. People who can use words to reach in and drag out whatever they want from our souls don't need to follow rules.
The rules exist for good reason. They exist to avoid ambiguity and confusion. You don't want your reader to come to a full stop in the middle of a sentence and not know what just happened. Except, that is, when stopping them dead in the middle of a sentence is exactly what you want to do to them.
You want your reader to enjoy the experience. That's why we have punctuation and paragraphs, for example. If you don't follow the norms for these things, you may make your reader uncomfortable.
But sometimes making your reader uncomfortable is precisely what you want to do. Sometimes you really do want to derail them mid-thought. Sometimes you want to yank their heads hard to the side and make them look straight at something they have been ignoring all their lives.
Tools
Words are tools. Tools that draw pictures in our heads, tools that make us think, laugh, cry. If you are trying to repair a leaking pipe, a hammer is not the right tool, but if you misuse a wrench and yet still do fix the leak, the important point is that you fixed the leak. If your writing accomplished its purpose, whatever that purpose was, you did your job and you are a writer, no matter what some self appointed critic says.
Paragraphs are tools. For example, on-line writing demands shorter paragraphs. That's reality, and it's a reality some writing critics don't understand. A writer can't be a writer if his readers jump ship because the length of paragraphs scares them.
Punctuation is a tool. As noted, punctuation rules exist to help avoid confusion and to provide easier reading. It's easy to misuse punctuation, particularly commas. But good writing, really good writing, can survive a bit of confusion.
 | Amazon Price: $14.97 |
Those who can, do
Most grammar critics can't really write. They can communicate, but they can't spin a reader around and make them dizzy with excitement. They can get the facts out, but they can't polish them up and make them sparkle. They can tell a story, but they can't summon the joy or pathos that a real writer can.
So, phooey on them. Who cares what they think? Let them follow their petty little rules and peck out their unexciting prose that will never cause a sharp intake of breath in a single reader, that will never cause a single tear to roll down a single cheek, that will never cause a single belly to roll in laughter.
Phooey on them.
Each of these posts needs picking at
- Scrap jewelry, copper, silver and gold coins - hoarding, melting and collecting
Nobody pays the actual metal value. - 6 months ago
- Converting from forced hot air heat to baseboard or wall radiators
I grew up in a home with large, old fashioned radiators. - 5 months ago
- Three iPhone/iPad apps for U.S. Coin Collectors
I was surprised to find that there isn't much available. - 16 months ago
- Adsense Basics - what 7 years of running Adsense has taught me
If you have signed up for Google's Adsense program and figured out how to get ads running on your website or your pages on someone else's site, you may still be confused about what to do next and what to expect. - 19 months ago
- Troubleshooting a Coleman forced hot air furnace limit switch
If you wake up in a blizzard and find yourself without heat as I did this morning, there are a few things that you might want to try before you give up and call for repair. - 16 months ago
- How to use Quickbooks in a cash basis business
While there are advantages and disadvantages to both, cash basis is often easier for a small businessperson to understand: you record income for taxing authorities when you actually receive or pay out money. - 16 months ago
- Why Windows 8 might Kill Microsoft
John Lennon was talking about world peace and the end of religion when he wrote that famous song. - 6 months ago
- How to use a multimeter to test batteries, phone jacks, cables and more
The woman seemed so anxious and distracted that I told the clerk to go ahead and help her first. - 6 months ago
CommentsLoading...
Yes, too and to, its and it's - those can stop me dead in my tracks.
I stick to using also as much as possible. The only time that you ever use too, is when you would use also.
You too?
:-)
I am the worst enemy of comma use in the world. Enemy #1. I don't really use grammar consciously AT ALL. I usually just write and punctuate as I go, not really thinking about it. lol. I have the biggest problem with commas and its/it's. :) This was a good hub! I enjoyed it as always.
I have always enjoyed your writing, with or without commas.
As I said in the other hub, I'm a recovering grammar nazi.
But you are recovering, right?
Although I am not highly educated in the correct usage of grammar, I still dislike the misuse of certain words. There, their, and they're used in the wrong instances always get my attention. Along with those words some have already mentioned, of course!
But you will not catch me correcting anyone for using them in the wrong place as I do not feel qualified to do so!
And "your" for "you're", of course. Brain stoppers.
Edmund Arnold, who wrote the book on typography and page design (Arnold's Ancient Axioms) started his book out with the most important axiom of 'em all: Take these axioms with a grain of salt. He argued that sticking with the rules is the safe way to go, but your product will most likely be hopelessly bland. You can say the same thing about grammar and punctuation -- in fact you can say that about a whole lot of things.
As a former editor, I do have my crochets, but they're mostly in the word usage, redundancy, and clarity-of-thought departments. Things like "brutal murder" (I guess some murders are gentle?) and affect/effect.
Bland is safe and safe is bland, I agree.
APPLAUSE!! Well said, Pcunix. What about e.e. cummings? Come on, people-RELAX and create!!!
Oh yes - now THERE is an example of reaching In and pulling out whatever he wanted!
But, regardless, you still have to know the rules of grammar before you can to break them :)
But...yes I am recovering...slowly.
One day at a time, UV! :)
For me, the worst is when they correct your grammar or spelling on Facebook, YouTube or some place similar. If you know what I meant, stop wasting electrons!!!
BTW, weren't you the one who wanted their money back for spelling errors in one of my books??? :-)
Absolutely. And since I have had that book for many years and even have two copies, I want quadruple damages.
Welcome to HP!
First of all, I have to agree wholeheartedly that it is a superior talent and effort which can awaken readers’ thinking and feeling above the average humdrum of much that passes for communication. That is beyond question. It is a major artform in its own right, and one that only a few can accomplish.
That magic skill and art of wielding the language to stir the mind, heart and soul or to tickle the funnybone is not dependent on any one element of the presentation but is infused with the knowledge of human nature, the full experience of what it is communicating, fine-tuning and mastery of all skills needed, plus attributes which are not learned in classes but inborn and developed through practice, sensitivity and skill.
So my questions are: can good grammar and spelling usage honestly be blamed or held in contempt if the premise sucks and there is no fire and flavor to the writing which can boast only its impeccable grammar?. Conversely, is bad grammar to be the new mark of excellence?
If all the writing has is grammar, it has nothing.
But "bad" grammar, like word meanings, is simply the conventions of the time. Certainly if you are too far from a normal readers expectations, you will be judged harshly.
Of course - conventions exist to implement whatever purposes they serve. A convention is a commonly understood clue to what is being said or done. And as common understanding and usage changes, so be it. I recently watched my DVD of Emma Thompson's screenwriter presentation of Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility". The conventions in it fit the time period and seemed natural to it. Included on the DVD was Emma's acceptance of her GoldenGlobe award for best screenwriting of that year (a highly competitive year it was, too).
She was so clever. She delivered her speech commending all the others responsible for the success of the movie - as Jane Austen might have done! It was HILARIOUS!! There was this totally modern, with-it, 3rd millennium woman holding her award and speaking like a totally modern, with-it 1806 woman might have. It was such a comical juxtaposition. All anyone could do was laugh and see the point!! And what a good illustration of changing mores in our English language usage!!
Words and word groupings are nothing more than symbols of the thoughts and ideas they intend to convey. A symbol by its nature has no meaning on its own. It relies on mutual acceptance and understanding of those using, receiving and exchanging it. As the use and understanding of its meaning changes, it becomes symbolic of the new applications. But to discard or neglect the current best usages for no real reason? That is what stumps me.
At times it is useful to use deviation to stir and stretch the readers' minds and to shake us up to take in a new use and meaning or to emphasize one which would be taken too much for granted, of course. But at other times all it does is stop the flow of the writing, halt the reader's empathy with it, and require totally unnecessary and useless effort of a reader to interpret what the writer meant to say but lacked the skill to say smoothly. Writers who know how to do the first already know when to bend the rules and writers who fall into the other group are all too eager for excuses not to bother to upgrade their language toolboxes or to employ their optimum usage.
I cannot disagree with anything you said.
Have you read "The Unfolding of Language"?
No, I haven't - but I'll certainly look into it! Thank you for the tip.
Ever since Miss Carstarphen managed to somehow make it come alive for me - and the others in the 4th grade class, I daresay - I've had a fascination and love affair with this incredible language of ours. She managed somehow to make it sensible and it's never seemed stuffy or arbitrary, but useful and worthwhile to me. I grew up in a home where it was just normal to use good grammar and look up words one didn't know. And I've also lived closely with and among folks who had no regard for it - even sneered at good usage, so that I needed to struggle to keep them from trying to train my kids to use "ain't" and other blatantly incorrect choices. Perhaps that is what alarms me about a trend in that direction. It is easier to keep up good habits than to undo bad ones and as standard setters, writers need to be aware of our influence possible either way.
So forgive me for 'butting in'. I did understand your premise and as you can see - I have my own grammatical peccadillos. hehe. Also I would not sacrifice meaning or pizzazz for abiding by a rule if it were a valid choice!!
Thanks for being nice about it!
Ahh.. You need to read that book :)
I'm going to add an Amazon link for that because it is relevant to this subject.
**Ahem** I guess that makes me a grammar nazi. My pet peeves are well-documented in a couple of my hubs--and for the most part, those peeves are shared with those who have commented before me--although I like to think I am capable of both correct usage and spellng while I master word pictures and creative turns of phrase. ;-)
You want to talk long paragraphs? How about paragraph-long sentences?? James Michener was a master of that skill, yet made those sentences so gripping you didn't even notice their length.
Cheers!
James Michener would never make it on the web :)
Though I disagree about "you didn't even notice their length". Personally, I did not like Michener much for exactly that reason. The first thing of his I ever read was "Hawaii" and part way through the first paragraph I remember thinking "Oh, give it up, you pompous jackass!"
Not everyone loves Michener :)
LOL Pcunix! I did not actually like all of his works. I should have made clear the book of his that had me so spellbound was "The Source." ;-)
well, you've done it again, i love this, I am not nor will i ever be a grammar nazi, for teh very reason that i can't see my own mistakes. What I do take pffence over is the "texting" versions of writing, )u know what I mean! R U sure?)
U R OK!
I downloaded a sample of the Unfolding of Language on my Kindle, when I went back to buy it it was no longer available in ebook form.
That stinks.
I understand what you're saying, but when I hear terrible speaking grammar a little fuse inside my head starts to overheat. The fact that most people in America speak English like it's their second language and even the president says "there's things" is an insult to everyone's intelligence. Oh well, I guess that's what happens when you grow up speaking an inflected language. In Russian if you don't use correct grammar it can change the meaning of what you're saying. One improperly declined noun and instead of "the children are rowing the boat" you could be saying "boat child swings to are it", or something along those lines.
Mikhail, you need to read "The Unfolding of Language" :)
bad grammar derails me, but i only bother to correct it if i know and respect the author. of course, as you can see, in informal writing, due to a lack of manual dexterity, i don't capitalize. it's more bother than it's worth.
your grammar in this hub had no glaring errors. you must care a little.
I only care to the extent that it interferes with communication and understanding. beyond that, it is silly.
Correct grammar is necessary in many instances, such as distinguishing between their, there and they're. In many cases, correct grammar is not necessary for effective communication. If my friend is late to my party, and I call him and ask "where are you at", I have made a grammar booboo. Even so, the question is very clear and communication has not been hindered. My friend will understand what I asked him even though I ended a sentence with a preposition.
In my experience, grammar snobs generally correct others to make themselves feel superior. Well, the English language is not a science, folks.
MrKnowledge 22 months ago
I normally don't care too much about correct grammar. There are just little things that nitpick at me. Like using to, instead of too, and vice versa. I struggle with figuring out whether I need to say then or than, but for the most part, I can be okay with incorrect grammar, unless you happen to be criticizing someone else. If you are going to take the time out of your day to slander someone, be sure to use correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar, or else you just look stupid. For casual conversations and writing, it doesn't matter. If you are trying to make yourself look intelligent, incorrect grammar can ruin your attempts, though. I also wouldn't write an email to one of my clients where I look like I didn't pass the third grade. For casual writing and conversations, there's no point in pointing out someone's flaws. If you are busy correcting someone's grammar, you probably aren't paying attention to the point that they are trying to make in what they're saying or typing.