Grammar or no grammar? Aiming for invisibility

Merriam A. Grain — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 07:33:57 +0000

South Wilts Grammar School for Girls, Salisbury by Jaggery is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0

WHAT’S THE USE OF GRAMMAR then?

Invisibility.
«The goal of your grammar usage in your novel is simple: Aim for invisibility. If your reader notices your usage, or rather, your incorrect usage, of grammar, punctuation, or other typos in your text, you’re going to draw them out of your story and onto the physical page. They’ll remember that they’re reading, not skiing in Aspen or investigating the black market in human organs with the characters you’ve created. If you do not know the general rules of grammar, you should look them up. Sooner rather than later. Like now. Consider purchasing a book such as the short, influential text The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.»

Sarah Domet (90 days to your novel)

I personally, would recommend The good grammar book. It is the quite simple and non nonsense kind of book and the explanations make sense with what’s spoken which is always helpful.

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN?

Yes… Grammar is invisible but a lot of authors nag on it.

Let’s think. How many books do you read annually? Maybe not a lot (I myself don’t read much since Play books has this pretty feature of reading aloud and now I can sew or do stuff while listening[1]… ). Maybe you read a lot of books. Both ways are ok. Sometimes we do not get anything out of a book but we do from the videogame, movie, comic and sometimes; it is all related to cataracts, glaucoma or degenerative stuff happening in both eyes or one… Or we just have to get out time from nowhere.

Anyways, if you’re here, you read. That or you just have had a close encounter of the worst kind with nonsense (I nonsense, I exist). So you read [obv would my younger cousins say]. Hencefore, you notice with just a glance any time I misspell gramar. Don’t you?

… Does it upset you? Right. It makes you notice you’re holding a smartphone or some 500 pages big thing, perfect to use in case of assault, instead of luscious padded green moss and the fresh and greasy smell of pine sap surrounded by whispering green needles…the steel sparkling to the sun like the river about to cut the monster.

GRAMMAR OR NO GRAMMAR?

Maybe a dictionary in the short term and a bit of conjunction junction is my function.
After all, you gotta start somewhere. And that includes having fun. Pasto kalo.

[1] I never said I was a hardworking kind of person. If something, I’m lazy.

Grammar or no grammar? p1

Merriam A. Grain — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 07:44:09 +0000

South Wilts Grammar School for Girls, Salisbury by Jaggery is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0

ME HATES GRAMMAR

I’ll declare it bluntly. I HATE GRAMMAR. I do dislike it enough to ignore what the heck a subjuntivo is and a post pretérito (one of the many Spanish tenses) must be some bug living under a rock. Future, present or past? I might be able to explain the tense but no idea of the rules. Accents? If is ain’t aguda, it is es an esdrújula… And you must have noticed it already. I have no idea of grammar in my own mother tongue.

I used to teach English as a foreign language. English as a language books are filled with grammar, phonetics and cultural explanations. Thus I’m more or less good at grammar and I can for sure explain comparatives to a nine y.o.

Nonetheless I still hate grammar.

HOW DO I SURVIVE WITH A PASSABLE GRAMMAR IN SPANISH THEN?

I survive with a copy paste compass I acquired when young and that’s incorporated now to my, sometimes, elephantine memory. We all have one. The memory that keeps anything useless and superfluous to others but us since we like the topic. Such as the 121 chemical elements, Beatles covers’ graphic reticules, name of the album plus director of the MV of each song by Depeche Mode, animations titles, scientific names of the favourite plants ( cyclamen persicum, sinningia, calathea makoyana, pelargonium…), tour and concert or statements by Justin Bieber (you can interchange Bieber for BTS[1]).

Some people use mnemonic techniques and can access bigger databases but we all have access to one.

Mine storages plots, titles and phrases. That’s how I can write passably well in Spanish, navigating that sea by sonar (dictionary and text correction turned on in the word processor).

TO BE CONTINUED…

[1] Not saying they’re the same, just that the name of the artist is irrelevant when the point is how we storage what we like and not what others do.