There are all kinds of pedants around with more time to read and imitate Lynn Truss and John Humphrys, than to write poems, love letters, novels and stories it seems. They whip out their Sharpies and takeaway and add apostrophes to public signs, shake their heads at prepositions which end sentences and mutter at split infinitives and misspellings. But, do they bubble and froth and slobber and cream with joy at language? Do they ever let the tripping of the tips of their tongue against the tops of their teeth transport them to giddy euphoric bliss? Do they ever yoke impossible words together for the sound-sex of it? Do they use language to seduce, charm, excite, please, affirm, and tickle those they talk too?
Do they? I doubt it!
Stephen Frye
For those of you who’ve been reading this blog for while know, I am terrible with grammar. I know it and you know it. I’ve talked about it before and many of you have helped me out by letting me know when I screwed something up big, usually in the title. In many cases my grammar deficiencies are less a grammar problem and more of an editing problem. I know the difference between your and you’re, their, there and they’re. Regardless, I mess up all the time and don’t catch them when editing.
I’m OK with it. I work hard at getting the posts as clean as possible, but I always seem to miss something.
Getting the grammar right is important. However, when I write I’m more more focused on the message, the story and the point and if the grammar doesn’t detract from that, I don’t worry about it.
This video nailed it for me. The point, too many people spend too much time worrying about language and not what is being said.
I don’t subscribe to the idea that if a resume has a typo or two it is some how a reflection of the person’s ability to the do the job. Unless your hiring for an editor, get over it. I don’t have problem when I see a spelling or grammatical error when reading a book. I care more about how captivating it is or how much it’s teaching me.
I think we’ve become a bit persnickety about grammar and it’s correctness. In a time when blogging has made everyone a publisher, worrying about prepositions, apostrophe’s, misspellings and the appropriate use of “their” and “they’re” when we all know exactly what the aurthor is trying to say, seems to be missing the point. The point, there is some killer content out there today. We should be enjoying that — don’t you think?
