10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or more...

-20-

First off, happy fourth. No one here will understand that, but anything that I write on the fourth of any month must include this fact.

And now, the real content.
Grammar.

In class today, we were discussing a certain paragraph on the board, and the topic of grammar came up. I became a bit violent over a certain misplaced comma, and was tempted to go on a rant about the education system's lack of grammatical teachings. Most people go through all of high school not doing a single ounce of grammar. And it makes me wonder how on Earth this can be possible.

I mean, I myself only know grammar for a few reasons. Reason one, my four years of Latin. You can't learn case endings, the dative case, and all the different types of verbs without comparing them to their English meanings. This fortunately allows for a great deal of grammar learning. Reason two, English 11. Our teacher, Mrs. Hartley, attempted to have a weekly grammar lesson. I would just get annoyed since I had already learned all these things, and those in our class who hadn't taken the Latin were all like, "asljk What's a comma?!one" That alone made me despise Friday English. The point is, though, that she still tried to teach us, even if we [for our own reasons] weren't willing to learn. So props to her for being one of the FEW English teachers still around who do such a thing. Reason three, I heart grammar. I always have. I love commas and word usage, and knowing what sort of verb fits where. Gives me a little bonus, I guess.

So everyone here doesn't know how to write a proper sentence, and it's still a bit upsetting. I just wish that people didn't think that spoken English and written English were one and the same. They are two very, very different languages. Sure, they use the same words for the most part, but other than that, there isn't much that is the same. You don't pronounce punctuation when you speak, so for all intents and purposes, punctuation doesn't exist. But people think that the two can be interchanged, and that you can use spoken English as written English, and that your paper will turn out fine and dandy.

Well, guess what. It won't.
Learn some grammar.
It'll make your life a lot easier, people.

posted by Jenk @ 1:26 PM