Opinions

 

February 25, 2008

Aimee Ouellette
opinions @theotherpress.ca

 

 

Ouellette

opinions editor

    
 

L time to batten down your lexical
hatches and un-splice your commas,
because National Grammar Day is on its
way to the United States, which means it
won't be long before it catches on here.
On March 4, 2008, the country with the
President who coined the terms “Nu-cu-
lar” and “childrens do learn” is devoting a
day to the understanding and preservation
of the rules of our great language.
National Grammar Day is brought to you
by the Society for Promotion of Good
Grammar (SPOGG) and MSN’s Encarta.
Even though National Grammar Day isn’t
a Canadian day (yet), I think it deserves
some attention.

For one, Canadians share a lot of
the same language foibles as Americans.
Although we Canadians have preserved
the honourable “U” in many of our
spellings and have a tendency to distrust
some Americanisms, both Canadians and
Americans agree that British English (or
Britglish) is just truly weird. Have you
seen what they do with their commas?
They leave them outside the quotation
marks! It’s positively barbarous—no
wonder they lost their empire.

Not only is grammar important
because it helps us distinguish ourselves
from those poncy Brits, it also helps
us achieve clarity, that most vital part
of communication. While all (or at
least most) words mean something

independent of other words, grammar is
what makes words mean something in
relation to each other. This means that
the more complex one’s ideas are, the
more important grammar becomes. If
all you ever have to say is “me hungry,”
or “me sleepy,” then don’t worry your
pretty head about grammar and go have
some lunch and a nap. If you would
occasionally like to express yourself in
ways that could be called “subtle” or
“poignant,” but don’t want to bother
with grammar, you’re going to want to
read on—this rant is for you.

Grammar is important, but not
because grammar itself is inherently
“good” or “right.” Rules change all the
time, and the rules themselves aren’t
possessed of a magical
rightness. Grammar
is important because
it allows our complex
personal thoughts to be
perfectly | understood
by others. Grammar is
also socially important.
Usage of proper

“Grammar is
important because it
allows our thoughts

to be perfectly

and you don’t really need to sleep with a
copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements
of Style under your pillow—not that it
wouldn’t be a great idea. Just remember
this: no one cares if you like to dangle
your modifiers in the privacy of your own
home. If you do it in public, however,
beware that you are sending a very clear
message to others: “I don’t put effort
into making sure I can be understood,
because there’s nothing important about
what I have to say.”

Unfortunately, some people
are linguistic hippies and are overly
concerned with self-expression (and
tightening their dreads). These lexical
layabouts are uppity about personal
freedom and don’t like to be bossed
around by “The Man.”
I don’t know who “The
Man” would be in this
case (maybe Noam
Chomsky?), but people
too often use originality
as a PC euphemism
for Just Plain Lazy.
Newsflash: no matter

grammar demonstrates understood by how committed you
that the speaker has i are to boycotting
both the competence to others. capitalization, you will

understand rules and
enough maturity to
know when the rules apply. When an
adult person walks up to me and says
“swimming is fun and addicting, one
time I almost drownded,” that person
communicates two messages: one, that
he or she enjoys swimming but has
had unfortunate water-related incidents
before, and two, that he or she is
marginally brain-dead.

I know that everyone has slip-ups,

never be e.e.cummings.
When you send me a
text message that says “LOLI NO RITE
Y RNT U N CLSS 2DAY!!!11,” you
may have saved yourself two minutes
by abbreviating words that have no right
being abbreviated, but you cost me five
minutes of trying to figure out what the
heck you just wrote. That’s a net loss in
productivity, and it’s a problem cropping
up everywhere.
But grammar is boring, you say?

 

ng and internet slang, it’s time to celebrate.proper.English

   

Well so is learning what traffic signs
mean, but most of the people on the road
buckled down for long enough to learn
them and pass their road test. In any case,
boringness is the very nature of arbitrary
rules—they’re boring because they’re
arbitrary, and just because they’ re boring
and arbritrary doesn’t mean they’re not
vitally important. If I mow down an old
lady with my giant SUV, I don’t get out
of jail free just because “traffic rules are
sooooo difficult. And who decided red
means stop anyway? Why don’t I get to
decide what red means to me? Jeeeez.”

Now just excuse me while I put
down my knitting to chase a few kids
off my front lawn. Seriously, though—I
know I’m being stingy here, but I’m just
tired of the same old lame excuses. I
have heard one too many times that the
evil, nebulous spectre of “The Internet”
is the thing responsible for laziness in
general and poor grammar in particular,
but I don’t buy it. MSN, cellphone
text messages, and social networking
sites like Facebook are also frequently
fingered as the cause of language erosion.
Well, let me tell you a thing or two,
whippersnapper. Your inability to “get”
grammar has absolutely zero to do with
the Internet. It’s true that the Internet
has allowed you to do “more things, but
crappier and with less commitment.”
That doesn’t mean that the Internet itself
has to be personified as an incompetent,
noncommittal jerk. In reality, that lazy
jerk is YOU. So un-dangle your modifier
already. And get off my lawn.

For more information on
National Grammar Day, visit www.
nationalgrammarday.com.

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