Think about it for a minute. Where did you learn grammar?
(pausing while you post your story in the comments.)
Me, I had a mother who corrected pretty much every sentence I ever uttered through grade 8. I also loved Mad Libs and parts of speech are pretty easy from there. In high school I had an English teacher who was a stickler for grammar as well. Diagramming sentences anyone? I have a love/hate relationship with them.
Now switch gears a bit. Where did you learn to write? Did those grammar lessons make you a good writer?
Good writing and good grammar are two different things. It's balance between the two that make it worthwhile. I can't ever read Angela's Ashes because of the complete lack of punctuation. It makes me want to pull out my red pen and edit away.
I like to think I'm a decent writer. But as far as a good grammarian? The jury is still out.
3 comments:
I think I learned most of my grammar through osmosis. My mom and grandmother are/were incredibly great at grammar and they spoke and wrote correctly from when I was a little kid on. There was diagramming sentences with Mr. Sponseller in 7th grade English class. I learned a lot of English grammar as well through studying French because I had to understand the parts of speech in English to get them right in another language. The only time I remember studying it was in college in Technical Writing & Editing class, specifically on an exercise about the difference between "that" and "which."
I learned grammar in the olden days when it was taught from the moment we began to write. I was also fortunate to have parents that believed in speaking correctly, so I had a double dose of it.
I think that's the best way to learn it, actually, by example. I used to be able to do "who" and "whom" right without thinking because I was around people who got it right always. Now? It's a thinking exercise that typically results in me re-writing to avoid the situation.
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