Why am I so interested in helping American grownups use our American system of grammar correctly?
As my mother constantly asked, “Didn’t everyone learn it in school?”
Well, first of all, no. We didn’t all learn it in school, and there are several reasons for that. Yes, the teachers tried, but there’s a huge difference between being taught and actually learning.
Second, the last time most of us were exposed to grammar was about eighth grade, after which we were often told by our creative writing teachers that we should just express ourselves and not worry too much about those pesky punctuation details.
And in eighth grade, most of us were 13 or 14, our hormones were raging, and we were likely more interested in the cute boy or girl sitting next to us to listen to any lessons given by anyone over 25. How could we have known then that we’d grow up to care about the stuff teachers taught us, especially things like grammar? We couldn’t have known, and it’s been maybe 20, 30, or 40 years since “back then” anyway.
Who remembers exactly what we were taught?
Your nose just twitched …
Third, we often decide how to write or speak based on what someone else does.
The problem with doing that? Most of us are smart, but we’re not always smart in the same way. Following the HR VP’s way of using semicolons, for instance, might not work, because she’s smart as a whip with people and HR issues, but not so smart about American punctuation rules.
Am I right?
And fourth, American grammar is different from other variations of English grammar. We have some punctuation rules (especially those concerning the use of quotation marks) and some spelling (humor or humour, realize or realise) and usage differences that are just part of our way of speaking or writing.
As we are more and more a global community, we often see articles written in a different version, and if we’re not sure about our own system, we can get confused about what we’re supposed to do here.
So the burning question: Why do I show writers the edits I’ve made in their content? I want them to learn.
Susan Rooks
“I want writers to look and sound
as smart as they are.”
