My experience with grammar that I can actively remember was Senior English six years ago. I remember identifying parts of a sentence. This busy work lasted one day before the entire class rebelled and the class went back to writing essays and watching Shakespeare’s Hamlet (the Mel Gibson pre Passions).
My education was lacking.
I am not familiar with more than a basic understanding of sentence structure. I scoff at grammar mainly because I do not understand all the nuances. But, I know that I need to know more than I do.
I am a fiction writer and I do not believe all language must be grammatically correct to achieve understanding with an audience. I prefer sentence fragments to emphasize the importance of the ideal rather than the complete and correctly punctuated thought.
However I know that I must know, if not acquire expert knowledge, of grammar to break grammar rules. If I want to be taken seriously.
Artistic license means nothing if I’m not breaking the rules
After reading the first chapter of The War Against Grammar and ignoring the grammatical piety, I was struck by the woman who lied about going to the grammar seminar because she feared repercussions from her boss. The idea of such a strong negative force inspired avocation for change, changing grammar.
Restructured Grammar for Modern English, a title pending for 2011.
While I respect and even admire those people who worship at the alter of Grammar Gods, I believe there needs to be a revolution of simplification. If intelligent adults attending college are unable to process beyond basic grammar because they have not been steadily spoon-feed the knowledge from babyhood, as Mulroy acknowledge, then there is a problem.
My education was lacking.
I am not familiar with more than a basic understanding of sentence structure. I scoff at grammar mainly because I do not understand all the nuances. But, I know that I need to know more than I do.
I am a fiction writer and I do not believe all language must be grammatically correct to achieve understanding with an audience. I prefer sentence fragments to emphasize the importance of the ideal rather than the complete and correctly punctuated thought.
However I know that I must know, if not acquire expert knowledge, of grammar to break grammar rules. If I want to be taken seriously.
Artistic license means nothing if I’m not breaking the rules
After reading the first chapter of The War Against Grammar and ignoring the grammatical piety, I was struck by the woman who lied about going to the grammar seminar because she feared repercussions from her boss. The idea of such a strong negative force inspired avocation for change, changing grammar.
Restructured Grammar for Modern English, a title pending for 2011.
While I respect and even admire those people who worship at the alter of Grammar Gods, I believe there needs to be a revolution of simplification. If intelligent adults attending college are unable to process beyond basic grammar because they have not been steadily spoon-feed the knowledge from babyhood, as Mulroy acknowledge, then there is a problem.
3 comments:
I really like the idea of the modernized grammar. It seems (as I said in my post) that grammar is the most inflexible part of the English language. Vocabularies change, spellings are modernized, why not grammar too?
I think we can see evidence that grammar USAGE has changed, even if the rules have not. Anyone have an opinion on whether or not the 'official' grammar rules should be changed? How would you suggest going that?
Whose "rules" are we talking about, guys? What evidence do you have that they have not changed?
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