Grammar/Written Word

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Not neccesarily, I got 2 yrs English second language at school in my early teens which was enough to have me parrot all the irregular verbs and was exposed to BBC television in my childhood thanks to my grandad whom refused to watch anything but the news on the Belgian channels. I love grange Hill to this day

By my second year English I was banned from reading out loud in class because my accent was a bad influence
For the rest I learnt it (my English) off drunken Glaswegians, an alcoholic American, pissed up Yorkshiremen, bummed out Londoners, a nutty lass from Cheshire, an even nuttier bloke from Norfolk, antipodeans and a few more memorable characters I will never forget.
Rules of grammar are probably least important for reading comprehension. Not sure what would be though. I'm utterly useless at naming the creature, all my knowledge of grammar is through rote learning and now it does no more than get my brain in a twist...

There are also books such as "Huckleberry Finn" that are written in a dialect. "A Clockwork Orange" is the most extreme example I know of, the dialect there being the invention of the author. I have little trouble understanding either of those books now, though it wasn't easy at first. Dialects are more predictable in their deviation than syntax errors are.

That seems reasonable to me. Anybody who writes a book would do well to consider if their readers will find the book easy or hard to read. If an author asks a reader for feedback about their writing, and the reader finds it hard going because there are too many liberties taken with the grammar, I think it's appropriate for the reader to say so. Or is this like the Aspie's husband's dilemma when his wife asks him how she looks?

Language is a dynamic thing.

Complex grammar was promulgated early on human evolution--probably right at the beginning.

It seems to me that, linguistically, societies which are "pre-literate" tend to have relatively more complex language, overall, than "literate" peoples.

English is not particularly complex, for example, when it comes to inflections--there are very many "irregular" verbs, though.

I've encountered languages spoken in Oceania where one could have inflectional variation within such situations as "addressing a mother-in-law, as opposed to a mother."

In other words, the inflectional variance, and sometimes even semantics in general, could be different, in such instances, when one is addressing a mother-in-law versus addressing a mother.

Obviously, most "modern" language don't have that distinction.

Within English, there has been a trend, over time, towards less complexity in general, and less grammatical complexity within spoken language. This might be at the heart of linguistically-minded people's irritation with people who "break" the rules of grammar when they speak or write.

In their minds, when somebody does not speak "grammatically correct," they are being ambiguous, and they are not "following the rules of grammar." Therefore, they are "uneducated," and perhaps "unworthy of discourse" with those who are "grammatically sophisticated."

Thus, the people who feel that grammar, rather than substance, must be emphasized express a disdain for those who do not follow the "formal rules." This is akin to finding certain foods distasteful because they were not "presented on the plate in a chef-like manner."

Language is dynamic. People who are stuck within formal rules frequently do not like the dynamism.

The best argument I've heard against "grammar snobbery" is that the main function of language is to be functional, and I agree that as long as the point gets across, there's nothing to criticise. It gets a little more difficult with (e.g.) scientific writing where the concrete meaning has to be set down very "clearly." Of course it's not always clear for all that, but that's the aim, and to some extent jargon seems necessary. As long as books exist that define the jargon precisely, scientific writing is accessible to everybody.

I think it's important to distinguish between good grammar and good clarity. Bad grammar detracts from clarity when the errors really mess up the reader's ability to convert the sentences into the thoughts the writer was trying to transmit. Plausible ambiguity is usually a mistake. A sentence that doesn't contain the usual verb and subject or object could simply fail to make any sense at all. Other forms of "bad" grammar that don't screw around with the clarity, I'm happy enough with, though sometimes the mistakes give the text an air of drunken clumsiness that can be funny enough to make me laugh. Legal threats and demands are usually stated with the utmost clarity, presumably because failure to clearly warn the reader of the consequences of their behaviour would weaken the writer's case if the matter ever came before the courts.

I was glad when there was a drive to improve the clarity of official letters to the public. Before that, official letters were often shrouded in obscure jargon that many readers couldn't fathom. So these days they tend not to use big, obscure words and phrases where a simple phrase will do the job better. I always felt such letters were pompous and elitist before the change. They seemed to be going out of their way to make things obscure just to keep ordinary people in their places.

In the case of my doctor's surgery, things went sour in another way. They don't use a pompous style. They make errors. The last letter they sent me was meant to ask me to go in to be screened for (I later learned) heart disease, but the only mention of the ailment for which they wanted to screen me was in the form of 3 initials. I don't know how patients without internet access would have decoded that. And the last line of the letter ended with the words ".....and then with a doctors." After a bit of work I realised it was probably just the "s" that had wrecked the meaning. I'm still not sure if this is all cause for concern or not. It annoys me that the National Health Service made so many mistakes on a document they circulated to so many people. I feel that the patients are being expected to do part of their job for them. When I first saw that letter, my subjective reaction was that it was complete gobbledegook. But perhaps most people would have no problem with it, and they'd just remove the offending "s" and quickly look up the meaning of the initials, in which case the health service is only guilty of neglecting my disability, not of being particularly unclear to "normal" people.

I want to thank the OP for starting this thread; it's quite interesting to me and is helping me see how what seems like the most basic communication can be confusing for some.

I've always enjoyed books and language and have had great success in English class, reading, and so on. (I'm also an NT, so that might have helped me.) I think the stumbling block for some people, whether they're on the spectrum or not, is that any language is a large and complex batch of symbols created to express what are often large and complex events, feelings, ideas, etc. I think that the more you read and communicate mindfully with other good communicators, then the easier comprehension can become for you...as long as you don't overthink things. Knowing where to stop analyzing can be hard for some, obviously!

Writing and reading about things like science can be quite different from writing and reading about less precise, more artistic things--you may be going for complete, rational accuracy (science, legal documents) or you may be trying to create one or more feelings or attitudes (literature or poetry). In every instance, a certain amount of background knowledge is important. If a reader can't pinpoint what s/he DOESN'T know about something, I'm sure they can get stuck and confused very quickly! My teachers and parents did a great job teaching me how to use "contextual clues" to understand whatever I was reading better, and my husband and I enjoy analyzing things like that now and then, especially when the writing isn't clear. We want to understand.

When it comes to "grammar snobbery," I have to defend some of it because even if someone who uses poor grammar does manage to get their point across, their sloppy writing can seem inconsiderate or even insulting--the author doesn't care enough to do a decent job. If the author can't write or spell better, it can make readers wonder if the author really knows much about anything at all.

I've given thought recently to the different qualities of language--the way you talk with friends is usually more casual and includes slang, partially because it creates a certain level of comfort and intimacy, but when you're talking to someone of authority, you put your thoughts together with more care (if you're smart). The same applies, I think, to written language, but time is also a factor. A quick e-mail to anyone can be a little reckless, but anyone writing an important speech or article should think carefully about the readers or the audience and what level of formality is appropriate. It may take longer to get the writing to a state that feels right, even if the author is highly skilled.

Please forgive me if this post is too long--we're talking about one of my favorite things!

Last edited by KimD on 06 Mar 2015, 12:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I believe in what you believe. When there's a lack of clarity because of bad grammar, then it must be made clear--via proper grammar.

The question is: When is there a "lack of clarity?" When a person is ruled by strict grammatical distinctions, there tends to be more "lack of clarity" than when a person is able to employ flexibility, to know the "common language."

I don't understand sometimes what people are saying on wp, but it is more because I don't understand some of the social and emotional things they are posting about than that I don't understand the sentences.

Sometimes, people make up meanings from my posts that I didn't mean, but I just have to tell them that I didn't say that or mean that if I notice them posting made up meanings from my posts.

Generally, I don't care about grammar, sometimes it is even pleasant to read things written in poor grammar.

I'd like to respond to the OP, if I may.
I used to have a difficult time analysing what people wrote. MSN was stressful as I felt under a time constraint to provide an answer and keep the conversation "moving." I analysed repeatedly what people had written.

"This is a piece from a New Zealand ASD woman's blog: A Stranger in Godzone: "Autism is not an excuse to do nothing"
"1) What is the 'this' (i.e. the first word of the first sentence) referring to?
2) Is the woman's blog called 'A stranger in Godzone: ''Autism is not an excuse to do nothing'', or is the blog simply called 'A Stranger in Godzone'?
3) What is the relevance of the blog being a 'Woman's blog'? Do you mean 'a blog written for women', or 'a blog by a woman'?"

1) "This" may have been better substituted with "Here."
2) I view this as I would view a book and chapter. The "book" in this context being "A stranger in Godzone." The chapter, in this context being "Autism is not an excuse to do nothing." Thus to me, the blog is called "A stranger in Godzone." The page or post within the blog is called "Autism is not an excuse to do nothing."
3) A "Woman's blog" would be a blog developed and run by a woman as the apostraphe denotes ownership. If the blog is directly intended for the perusal of women then that would likely be indicated in a different way.

"This is a piece" could be written as "Here is an extract from..."
"This is a piece" could be written as "This extract" if it referred to an element of a larger text.
"This is a piece" could be written as "This page (or piece)" if it referred to an isolated text, such as a webpage.

A few years ago I would have been unable to understand what the quoted sentence meant, in this context I find such ambiguity unneccessary to unpick as it is superfluous to an understanding of the writing as the sentence functions as an introduction.

Original: "This is a piece from a New Zealand ASD woman's blog: A Stranger in Godzone: "Autism is not an excuse to do nothing"
Yours: "Included herein is a link to the New Zealand ASD blog 'A Stranger In Godzone'. Specifically, the piece 'Autism is not an excuse to do nothing' - then the link would be added."
Mine: [link A] Here is a piece of writing "Autism is not an excuse to do nothing". Its from a New Zealand ASD woman's blog: "A Stranger In Godzone". [link B] - insert a link (link A) to the piece of writing. Insert another link (link B) to the homepage of her blog after.

-note about the text in my version: nothing". Its from a The "Its" refers to the piece of writing as the previous sentence was refering to the piece of writing, therefore there is nothing else that "Its" could refer to. also, the link is to the writing, therefore any ambiguity would be insignificant.

As for the original, my brain analyses it thus:
"This is a piece" - To show that it won't be a long wall of text, that it is a "piece" thus not a whole, it makes it appear concise.
"from a New Zealand ASD woman's blog" - Background information often gets people involved and interested, it can give context and credentials to an argument or opinion.
"A Stranger in Godzone: Autism is not an excuse to do nothing" - Book and chapter again.

As for:
Q: "Did you have a good day today?"
A: "Yes, I did."

Although often asked as a form of polite introduction, any answer given will be viewed in relation to the question asked. Any deviation from the question asked is usually made known.
"Yes", "Yes, I did" or "Yes, I did have a good day today" in this context have the same in meaning.
When broken down and analysed:
"Did you" - the person is asking me about me, not someone else.
"have a good day" - the person is asking about the events that I have experienced and my feelings over the course of the time period defined as a "day"
"today" - this defines which day and indicates the person doesn't want me to currently discuss things that are not relevant to that day.

The answer given "Yes, I did have a good day today", when I brake it down and analyse it:
"Yes" indicates positive affirmation of the day being good.
"I did" indicates that the above affirmation applies directly to me, which is unnecessary as the question was about my day.
"have a good day today" the question was about the day that I had and whether it was good, so it is unnecessary to word my answer in such a way.
The answer I would therefore give is "yes" or "no". Should I wish conversation to continue with that person I would give a reason that is short but with the implication that there is a longer version should that person wish to continue with that avenue of conversation.

"Each post I make on WP takes considerable time, as I read and re-read the post to check grammar/structure etc (which isn't always correct - but is a best effort)."
- I wish more people cared about what they had to say and would read what they post to make sure it could be understood. I am glad you do.

"Without clarity of structure and meaning, I literally cannot understand a sentence or proceed in conversation due to the potential for ambiguity."
- "Clarity" is different for different people, this depends on context, setting and the person who is writing. Understanding of a sentence is generally gauged from the surrounding text and said parts of "Clarity". Some ambiguity is inevitable as a person is trying to relate concepts, thoughts and feelings via the medium of words - because mental things cannot simply be transferred from mind to mind.
Language is often individually learnt and developed, thus we are all conversing through a medium that each of us has a slightly different interpretation and understanding of.

"Reading between the lines" is another way of saying "making assumptions", assumptions aren't always correct.

"I'm sure the WP users who have this problem understand the issue isn't one of pedantry, but one of clarifying intended meaning in order to communicate with lucidity."
Absolutely.

Like I said before, my technical knowledge of grammar is not all there. But saying that...

1. This refers to the piece. No idea why but someone whom knows the rules of grammar might be able to tell you.

2. I did read the thread this text refers to but never clicked on the link. Pressuming the answer would be found for definite should I do so. Blogs are more like diaries on the whole. Day to day kind of things. Not continuous stories. So no chapters for me. Just entries. So it makes perfect sense should the blog be called A stranger in Godzone and this particular entry would be entitled Autism is not an excuse to do nothing.

3. " these" or 'these' are not apostrophes but quotation marks or also known as inverted commas.


Just saying like...

The more English I learnt, the harder I found it. Which means I have to say my English 2nd language teacher was right when the told me that more than 30 years ago.
Not sure what you mean with linguistically-minded people. I only speak 3 languages but all to the degree you could not tell me from a native speaker. I can get by comfortably in one other but I rarely use it as I have no need to.
I refuse to keep to the rules of grammar in any of them unless it is formal communication and even then I usually manage to play the rules to suit me.
So I might come across as uneducated to some but I do know the difference between me apostrophes and inverted commas and to me that is all that matters. I used to write a lot, brain has gone a bit mushy over the years I suppose but I used to make an art of writing in colloquial style. Nothing more fun than managing to write an essay and somehow put my own literary marker on it by bending the rules to the point of breaking wothout actually doing so. And yes, should you wonder, tutors would complement me on my style because grammatically it was 'there' and my pieces were considered well-written.

One is linguistically-minded when one thinks frequently about the technical/scientific aspects of language.

There are times when this could manifest in a "style-over-substance" stance. One might write something beautiful, say, about the Ardennes Forest. One who is a "style-over-substance" quibbler might comment, say, on the use of the (often criticized) split infinitive, instead of focusing upon the beauty of the words.

From what I what gather, you would agree with me on this.

Oh my. I don't think I'm entirely on topic right now but I definitely empathize with this. I used to offer critique help on other people's writing...I stopped because I got so fed up with all my painstaking grammar advice being met with only, "Focus on the STORY, not the GRAMMAR, please."

How can I focus on the story when the grammar is atrocious?? Grammar is just as important as the story itself, and when beginning writers just brush it off like that and expect the critic to ignore it, I find it bothersome; it doesn't bode well for their future efforts. Thus why I no longer waste my time helping them when I could spend that time working on my own writing, instead.

On the flip side of the coin, however, I'm not such a stickler for "good writing" that I eliminate all my adverbs and excessive words, etc....though I've already made that much obvious. This is why I'm not liked on writing forums. I'm forgiving of differences in writing style. It's just when the hard rules are broken that I get fed up. And it's weird to me how many beginning writers don't feel the same way.



You would be surprised how many writers take grammar advice personally. I'm so painfully sensitive about my work that I make a point to ask readers NOT to offer me writing advice. Yet being corrected on my grammar/spelling is like the ONE time I don't feel too hurt, because grammar/spelling is either right or it's wrong, so there's no offense to be taken in being given such advice. The person is just correcting a factual mistake, not criticizing my preferred style. And that's fine by me.

Yet this hasn't been my experience with other writers...when I would correct their grammar errors, they'd get all huffy and tell me they would fix those later, to ignore it all and focus on the more important things. Which makes no sense to me; if you're asking for writing advice, shouldn't you have fixed up those problems in the first place?--so that critics CAN focus on the important things? But I seem to be in the minority among amateur writers when it comes to this. :/

(None of that was an attack/criticism of you, BTW. I actually agree. Just expressing my own perplexity at this phenomenon.)



Same here...one reason my enthusiasm for communicating with others is dampened, it just takes so much time and work to respond indepth. ;_;

...

Oh, and just in case anyone is worried (I have actually gotten this reaction on other websites)...no, I do not go about correcting other people's grammar and frowning upon them if they make mistakes in their forum posts or blog entries or any such. I get picky only when it's a piece that's supposed to be professional or published, or when that person insists their grammar is right when it's not. I realize forum and blog posts are not high literature and even I make some silly mistakes.

Over my head I'm afraid to give a fast answer to that. Most English speakers I know probably would have no idea what a split infinitive is to start with. Neither did/do I. After reading the wiki entry on it I am none the wiser either. But my gut feeling here tells me I just used it
I really am grammar illiterate from an academic viewpoint. The grammar rules I know and apply are no more than what I had to rote learn in my early teens and all the rest I just accumulated through practicing in real life situations and putting my foot in it untold times over the years. The good thing about the written word to me is that I get to wipe me foot off before anyone notices it so to speak

BBC World Service used to have an inscription in stone at the top of their building, I say used to because I'm not sure if the Worldservice is still in that building. The stone-carved text is still there on Google streetview though.
"For all the English speaking peoples" Never did get my head around why they called it peoples as people is plural to start with and that was the beginning of me giving up on 'understanding' grammar any more than I already did

The term "peoples," plural in construction, is used, primarily, to refer to a bunch of separate ethnic groups which share many similar characteristics (e.g., Bantu PEOPLES: The Hutu PEOPLE are an integral part of the Bantu PEOPLES).

"People," plural yet singular in construction, is, most often, used to refer to "all humanity."

I agree with what you said about rotten grammar and spelling being distracting, but if I'm looking at a casual comment, it's not a big deal to me. No one's perfect. However, I'm losing my patience with people who are actually paid to write something but fail to correct all sorts of common but glaring mistakes that a pro should be able to avoid!

To me, the likely intent and attitude behind the writing affects how I feel about poor grammar: if someone is being argumentative or rude, then I'm ready to pounce on them, though I usually don't. If the writing is part of a civil interaction then it doesn't matter as much...though I may worry a bit about the writer's education and how less sympathetic people might view them or treat them. Maybe that's one of the best reasons to pursue better writing skills: it can help influence how people treat you so you can get on with the task at hand.

Very thought-provoking responses in this thread - it's also very interesting to read the varying interpretations of this issue.

'Might be' is appropriate, given we can't assume to speak for everyone

Followed by an assumption to speak on behalf of everyone I can only speak on behalf of myself - I certainly do not consider someone who lacks sophistication with the written word to be in some way inferior - I simply struggle with the nature of what is being said, and ask for clarity. There is, however, no hierarchy.

Yes. And good grammar, ironically, almost always makes awareness of grammar/structural aspects of language vanish - which allows one to reach the meaning/intention of the words.

I'm reminded here of Richard Feynman - I'm curious on your thoughts RE his first point in the included video link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srSbAazoOr8


SuPaStAr - thanks for your reply, I enjoyed reading it


kraftie I'm enjoying reading your replies, despite the disagreements
There is a lack of clarity when poor grammar clouds the nature of the issue at hand. It could be argued that flexibility is the ability to employ good grammar. Those with good grammar can certainly write with poor grammar. In the instances of the various books mentioned in this thread, all authors were in fact very much technical masters of the written word - it is their control and command of language in the first instance that facilitates the freedom to express the written word in new ways - it is a conscious decision on their behalf - it is intended.

In your quote, I'd change 'ruled by' to 'adheres to', i.e.

When a person adheres to strict grammatical distinctions

As opposed to

When a person is ruled by strict grammatical distinctions.

'Adheres to' implies a choice is being made, and the issue is one of intention. 'Ruled by' implies lack of control over outcome.


Your very welcome Thank you for your contribution.


ToughDiamond - fantastic point RE the distinction between grammar and clarity. Again, my own feeling is good grammar is what creates clarity in the first instance. (PS I enjoyed the content of all your replies herein - thanks - especially so the other distinction you make i.e. that of syntax and dialect: dialect simply alters the symbols; syntax alters the structural coherence - which would potentially create nonsense)


guzzle - I'll concede RE 'not necessarily'