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.
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."
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteI 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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