We didn't do grammar in school. Or rather, in my Australian school years--and no, kids, they weren't 'the olden days' (HT: Jeff Bilman)--we learnt grammar by osmosis. We were exposed to texts, and expected to absorb the rules underlying their construction.
Not that my teachers didn't define some parts of speech. They did. For example, we learnt:
- A noun is a thing. (To which I thought, Great. That narrows it down.)
- A verb is a doing word. (What exactly is must doing?)
- An adjective is a describing word. (And all the other words aren't?)
Beyond that we were expected to intuit grammar. Phrases either sounded right or wrong-ish. Which is not very helpful when it comes to writing. It's very hard to interrogate an intuition about a passage you've written, locate the problem, and find a solution.
We've all heard of Grammar Nazis. The Grammar Nazi wants to own your text. Possibly to kill it. We need Grammar Proctologists. The Grammar Proctologist is interested in exploration, diagnosis, and longevity.
GP posts will chart my journey to better understand--and so better wield--the tools in the workshed of writing.
So next time a Grammar Nazi tells you your modal verb has illegally conjugated with a gerund, call the Grammar Proctologist.
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