A Grimoire of Grammar

I hate analyzing sentences. I couldn’t identify a comma splice, appositive, or elliptical construction to save my life. But show me a badly written sentence and I’ll fix it, no terminology needed. (Look, Ma! No hands!)

Recently, I started wondering if other people feel the same way: that the terminology is just so damn confusing as to stop us in our tracks, but we know a badly constructed line when we see it.

For example if you read a long sentence without any commas or anything you might sense there’s something wrong with it but maybe you don’t know the term run on sentence or anything and your English teacher says you’re a moron but you’re not you just don’t know the words to use.

Wow. That was actually painful for me to write. Ouch. More properly, that should read:

For example, if you read a long sentence without commas, you might sense that there’s something wrong with it. If you don’t know the term “run on sentence”, you may not be able to answer properly on a terminology test, but that doesn’t mean you’re stupid.

Run on sentences make me think of words like “clumsy” and “never ending”. I feel like I’m in a car with no brakes, headed down a dreary incline. For me, figuring out where to put commas is a question of where one breathes or puts emphasis when reading the sentence aloud:

The daffodils are bright this year but they were dull last year.

The daffodils are bright this year, but they were dull last year.

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away…

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

Some writers are famous others are less fortunate.

Some writers are famous, others are less fortunate.

Actually, on that last example, I would have used a semi-colon. To me, a comma is a slight pause; a semi-colon is a slight pause with purpose behind it. It says that something important is coming next, often something contradictory to the initial phrase.

Full confession: I overuse and misuse semi-colons. They’re probably my biggest editing bugaboo. I write the first pass without worrying about them, but each successive revision I take out more and more semi-colons. I’ve discovered that semi-colons are often my unconscious shorthand for “need to rework this sentence, just want to get the idea down first”.

Another bugaboo I have to watch is matching up plurals properly. For example:

A writer must work hard if they want to succeed.

This sentence can be fixed two ways:

Writers must work hard if they want to succeed.

or

A writer must work hard if he wants to succeed.

The second version runs head on into a gender neutral subject and points up that English is a funny language. There’s no gender neutral version of “he” or “she”, unless you make the subject an “it”, which is flat out insulting. (I’m a writer, not an “it”, thank you very much!) But I’m not going to dive into the pool of arguing about gender specifications in language–there’s mean ol’ lobsters hiding in that murk, they’ll take my leg off.

Grammar is one of those subjects that can be discussed endlessly and violently. No doubt purists will find mistakes in this post; I’m the only editor for this blog. I’m not an English major. I hate terminology. I write what “sounds” right, based on thirty-odd years of reading voraciously and skimming reluctantly through grammar books.

I don’t ask my beginning writing class students to show me good grammar. They read their work aloud; I never look at the page itself. I’ve never forced anyone to analyze a sentence. That’s really advanced stuff, to my way of thinking: the calculus of English class.

Whenever a piece of my writing is accepted for publication, if the publishing editor says I made a mistake, I trust her suggested fix as long as it “sounds” right. If it doesn’t sound right, I revise the sentence until we’re both happy.

Along the way, I’ve been learning, without a word of terminology, the “right” way. I’ve learned that I tend to leave “that” out of sentences (I’ve learned I tend to leave “that” out of sentences). I overuse semi-colons. There are a handful of words that I must check, every time I use them, no matter if I think I know the right spelling already. I mix up “further” and “farther” and “fewer” and “less”.

These are not show stoppers. These are quirks. I check for these items on the fifth and sixth revision passes, not during the first draft or initial revisions. I ask people with better eye for technical detail to check through the draft on the seventh or eighth revision, when I’m fairly sure I’ve cleaned up the most embarrassing mistakes. I rely heavily on the red-lining in my word-processing program to alert me to typos.

I am virtually incapable of writing only to the Bedford, or only to the Strunk & White, or only to the Chicago Manual of Style. I use English structure and spelling for some items and American for others. This drives purists utterly wild, and I’ve had to learn to live with that. I can’t make everyone happy. I can only do my best with each attempt.

So if you’re also baffled by grammar terminology, don’t feel bad. Learn to “listen” to the flow of the words, to soak in the feel for how other people write, and leave worrying about “proper structure” for the final few revisions. Eventually it will start to come naturally; people will start telling you how surprisingly clean your first drafts are–and you’ll just smile, knowing that you still can’t point out an appositive to save your life.