May 18th, 2004

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Words
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Grammar is tough

As I previously mentioned here in my guest-blogger debut, I am creating a seminar on business writing. Today I started the participant guide, in which I intended to include a brief summary of grammar and punctuation before I moved on to greater topics such as style and the proper application of a topic sentence.

Well I’ll be. Who would have ever thought that writing about grammar would be one of the toughest assignments I’ve taken on since as far back as I can remember? I’m at 11 pages, including title page and table of contents, and I’ve only just started to touch on where and how to use a comma. I have made great use of Google to help me find comprehensible descriptions of the concepts of subject and predicate. I am sure I will dream of compound sentences and subject-verb agreement, and more exotic things like double negatives, and where to put punctuation when using double quotation marks.

Is there an easy way to do this?

Comments: 4 Responses so far

Dean
May 19th, 2004
6:16 am

I don’t think there is an easy way to do it. Style guides, while not always thick, are dense.

I don’t speak any other languages, so anything I have to say on the subject is suspect, but it seems to me that I’ve read that Spanish is relatively simple. French… all those verbs. Italian is supposedly pretty quirky.

But still, I doubt that any of them are as difficult as English, which has been cobbled together from so many sources. As I’ve ranted about before, the ‘I before E’ rule is a good example: it is one way, unless it’s this exception or this exception or this exception to the last exception.

We have so many homophones and homonyms and acronyms that newcomers must just shrug in despair. “Hole” and “whole” share all but a single letter, and yet their meanings are almost as widely divergent as you can get. If I were learning about root words, that pair would puzzle me no end.

In other words, I don’t envy you your task.

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James Burns
May 19th, 2004
12:20 pm

When I was a young teenager, a former co-worker of my mother’s, who spoke about 5 different languages, once condescendingly commented that English was the only language he knew of that you could speak intelligibly with a pen in your mouth. He was trying to make a point about English’s mumbly nature.

In typical teenage fashion I turned the insult on its head, exclaiming that being able to communicate with your mouth full made English immanently more flexible, and a boon for those with speech impediments. That shut him up.

Where grammar is concerned English is definitely a dogs breakfast, and it is especially difficult for those learning it as a second language. The best hard and fast rule I tell people is; does what you have written clearly communicate what you are trying to say? Don’t agonize over commas. Just get someone else to read it, and ask them to explain it back to you.

Being grammatically correct in English is more like horseshoes and hand grenades. Close is usually good enough.

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Derek
May 19th, 2004
5:12 pm

I recommend just using the rules in The Elements of Style and leaving it with that, unless the business writers actually want to take a grammar course.

http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/020530902X/penmachine-20

http://www.writingcentre.ubc.ca/academic/grouping3.html

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Gail
May 26th, 2004
9:33 pm

“Is there an easy way to do this?”

In a word, no. There are style differences in each region where English is the native tongue. This applies to business writing as much as it does for literature borne out of England versus American literature. You might find some shortcuts, however, by scanning the reading list used by the business writing instructors at any of the ESL schools, or their custom courseware, which distills grammar and focuses on broader principles.

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