Grammar by Nancy L. Eady

To me, grammar is a funny looking word. It is one letter away from being a palindrome – a word that is spelled the same forwards and backwards. It would be “grammarg” if some enterprising person wanted to change it to fit the palindrome mold. If you were trying to guess how to spell “grammar” without ever having seen it, the most likely first guess would be “grammer.” A person who studies and writes about grammar is called a “grammarian.” I am not such a person. 

I have a decent grasp of the basics of grammar, such as what is a noun, verb, adjective and adverb. (Those of you who, like me, are of a certain age, probably can’t think of the word “adverb” without hearing a song in your head that begins “Lolly, lolly, lolly, get your adverbs here.” Thank you, Schoolhouse Rock!) I remember from my school years that a preposition is something that we are not supposed to end sentences or phrases with, except that now it is okay to do so. Or, as Winston Churchill said once when criticized by a young proofreader on ending a sentence with a preposition, “This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.” 

The best way to learn about the grammar of your language is to study another language. It wasn’t until I began learning Spanish that I realized the wide variety of verb tenses that exist. According to Google, English has twelve verb tenses: simple present tense, present continuous, present perfect, present perfect continuous, past simple, past continuous, past perfect tense, and past perfect continuous, future simple, future continuous tense, future perfect, and future perfect continuous tense. But at the same time, there is also the “participle” form of a verb, which is when a verb has a “-ing” thrown on it. My best guess is that the participle is folded within the continuous tenses, past, present, future.  I remember the phrase “present participle” because when we finally reached it in basic Spanish, I thought, “Huh, I didn’t know we had that.” 

I always despised English tests that involved grammar questions. They most often consisted of one sentence written incorrectly, with four choices from which you had to select the correct sentence. When I would read the sentences, I could think of several ways to communicate the same sentiment more effectively, but none of those would be in the four choices.

All that being said, grammar is important. A writers’ job is to communicate. If you attempt to communicate in English without following the basic rules English speakers use, chances are you will not succeed. Or, if the mistake is something like using the plural form of a verb with the single form of a noun, the reader will understand what you mean but the mistake will jar the reader out of your work. 

Most writers understand the rules of grammar at an instinctual level. We have a feeling for what is “good writing” versus “poor writing” and grammar plays an important role in that evaluation. But I have never diagrammed a sentence and if you held a gun to me, I still couldn’t name all twelve English verb tenses in spite of having written them out three paragraphs above. That doesn’t mean I’m not grateful for those warriors out there who do make the study of grammar their business. After all, someone needs to keep track of the rules! 

How much did you study grammar before writing? Have you ever diagrammed a sentence? What kind of grammar mistakes do you look for in your editing?