On Grammar
So by now you’ve probably noticed the grammar on these blog posts is…subpar. I could make excuses, say I’m so focused on editing that I don’t have the time or inclination to go over these with a fine tooth comb, but reality is I don’t actually care. I’m not a grammar Nazi, and never have been. I grew up with grammar Nazis, family members and teachers who would tear apart my writing and make me feel utterly inadequate. It took me a long time to realize that I was better then 90% of people when it came to English grammar, but because I was surrounded by the best of the best when it comes to grammar I thought I sucked. The thing that always tripped me up was commas. How did they seem to always know I was using commas wrong but couldn’t tell me how to use them correctly? So I picked up a copy of The Elements of Style by Strunk and White and read it several times before I figured it out. Everyone is using commas wrong.
Don’t get me wrong, there are rules for how to use commas, and you should employ them for formal writing. But if you follow the rules to the letter, your work will sound technical and robotic. The last chapter of The Elements of Style discusses how at some point each writer must determine their own style and part of style is ‘rule breaking.’ I will emphasize here that you do need to learn the rules first to break them. I read a book recently that was lauded as ‘brilliant’ for being written as a stream of consciousness. AKA, badly. The author not only did not follow the the grammar rules, I don’t think he knew them. While I am still not 100% certain of all the grammar rules, I constantly reference them when uncertain. But I will always err on the side of style over the rule to most effectively communicate my story. Because I believe the beauty of the English language, with it’s myriad of words and plethora of grammar constraints, is that we can very effectively get tone and style across more literally than in any other language I have seen.
That also means that grammar mistakes are bound to happen and be plentiful and possibly intentional. Commas are not there to drive us nuts, they’re there to emphasize what we are saying. That being said, have you ever tried editing a 60,000 word book? How about double that? You’re going to miss things. And if you throw it into AI, well, from first hand knowledge I know AI is going to make it a lot worse. Because, as I said above, if you follow the rules to the letter, you will sound robotic and inhuman. So I could throw these posts into an AI grammar checker, but I don’t care. Because I don’t care about perfect grammar. I think those that do are pedantic and annoying, perfect grammar does not make the story good. Bad grammar will take you out of a story, I’m not in favor of no grammar, but perfect grammar doesn’t mean good writing. In fact, often the opposite. And the absolute kicker, most people can’t actually spot grammar mistakes. I have seen too many people complain about ‘mistakes’ that weren’t mistakes and miss incredibly egregious errors. There is a pseudo meme that has popped up from time to time where a paragraph has all the words misspelled but the first and last letter of each word is the right one and all the words have all their letters. Most people can read the ‘implied’ paragraph because we as humans are highly adaptive when it comes to reading, provided you know how to read properly. If we as humans can read a misspelled paragraph with ease, we’re not noticing most grammar mistakes. So to all you grammar Nazis,
Heh.