The Question of Grammar
By Mariah Campbell
Grade 12
Washburn District School
“When are we gonna eat Grandma?” When discussing the question of grammar, this is perhaps one of the most overused examples out there. However, the reason it is overused is because it works.
As with Spanish, the smallest error in the punctuation of a sentence can change the whole meaning of said sentence. While this example is somewhat basic, the message is clear: grammar is important. Some would argue that it is becoming irrelevant in today’s society, what with shortcuts that are used in text conversations breaking into writings everywhere. They would say that good grammar is antiquated, that we need to make room for the changes that are overcoming the English language. I would argue that grammar has never before been more important.
“Charles the First walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off” (Meighan 1). This sentence is an example akin to the one that was used earlier; it also displays one of the most important reasons why grammar is necessary: clarity. Charlie Higson, a comedian and author who sides against grammar in this debate, argues that, “People all around the world, and for thousands upon thousands of years, have been using language to communicate perfectly well without needing to be told how to do it by a bunch of grammar Nazis who think that the way they talk and write is the correct, unchanging way” (“Is Good Grammar Still Important?”). Mr. Higson can go on and on about the uselessness of commas and sentence structure, but the fact remains that the first sentence of this paragraph is meaningless gobbledygook without punctuation. It is not communicating in an effective way, a way people can understand.
As for people all around the world communicating without needing rules, this can be said: we are talking about the English‚Äã language here. Not ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs or Chinese scrolls. The fact is, those languages had rules themselves that had to be followed in order to be understood clearly and correctly, just as the English language has rules. Is Higson so naive as to believe that we are the only peoples on the planet to have guidelines as to how to write correctly? Come now, that’s like saying America is the only nation to have a functioning economy, which we know for certain is not true. There is another thing that we can be certain of as well, when it comes to the topic of disintegrating grammar: if we allow grammar to fail, spelling will follow like a bad smell follows a frightened skunk.
He bckd her up agenst the wal runin his fngurs thru her hare as he bent his hed to kis her. Imagine picking up a book and reading an intimate scene, only the sentence structure and spelling was the same as the sentence above. Imagine that the entire book was written the same way. Kind of kills the immersion, right? What with it seeming as if it was written by a lonely 12-year-old in the secrecy of his or her bedroom and all. The sad thing is, if we allow grammar to fall, this is what most books will look like. This is what everything will look like.
You see, spelling and grammar go hand ≠in≠ hand. If you have one without the other, your sentence falls apart. If we start letting grammar go the way of Blockbuster and floppydisks, we can only assume that spelling will follow. What is the point of having good spelling when you don’t care about sentence structure anymore? whn its ok 2 tok lik ths n no1 cares? Of course, there’s always the idea that we don’t let grammar die, but teach it only to the upper class. Let’s say we teach grammar only to the upper class and editors of newspapers and books and crap. Basically, only those whose message will be seen by thousands of people. If we should decide to do that, there is something that must be considered: knowledge is power. If you take away the ability to write and be understood clearly and correctly from the lower classes, than you are stripping them of important knowledge. You are taking away what little power they have.
Take the slaves from early American history, for example; many were forbidden to learn how to read and write, as it was seen as something they could use to defend themselves and unite against their masters. Eventually, the lower class will see it the same way, as something they can learn to use against the upper class. There is also the fact that if we teach grammar to the upper class and neglect the others, the lower class’s writing will continue to deteriorate. It will get so bad that, soon enough, it will look as though the two classes are writing in completely different languages.
The same thing happened in the United Kingdom. The upper class thought they would distinguish themselves from the lower class by pronouncing words in a different way. This went on until England finally developed its own accent. And that was just with speaking. Can you imagine if we did it with the written word? It would wreak havoc on communication; you know the little line thingy that runs on the bottom of CNN News that lets you know the different stuff that’s happening? The lower class wouldn’t be able to read that. They also wouldn’t be able to read any of the bullet points that CNN puts up, or the 9-1-1 phone call transcripts, or the subtitles that you get when there’s interference with a reporter. They wouldn’t understand any of it.
Well, get them their own news channel, you say. Okay. We get them their own news channel. Then their own newspapers. Then their own books. Then they have a whole way of communicating that’s completely different from the upper class. It would cause separation. Conflict. It would essentially split the nation, and history class taught us all how smoothly that went last time we tried it.
There are some things that should be changed. Shorts should cost less than pants. McDonald’s should be healthier. Commercials should be shorter. The fundamentals of grammar, however, should stay the same. It is structure, a foundation, and what happens when the foundation of a house crumbles? Bingo, the house itself falls. Do you really want that situation to play out with the way we communicate, and, excuse my melodrama, the structure of the society we have so carefully built? That is why grammar has never been more important than it is now, in this time of doubt.
