Grammar ain’t this writer’s strong suit

One of the drawbacks of being a writer is the assumption many people make that I know something about grammar. I do not. I have only the scantest knowledge when it comes to this subject. A billion years ago when I was in grade school, it was the class I performed worst in although it was the class I worked at the hardest.

Yet I get calls from friends, such as the other night, asking, “What’s an adverb? An adjective? What’s a personification?” And so on. (Similarly, I’m often asked how to spell certain words. I usually answer only after consulting a dictionary.)

Some writers, maybe even most writers, are very good grammarians and spellers. But this one isn’t. What I do have is a sense for what sentences work well, what words enhance a noun or verb, and so. It is called mimicry.

I have read a huge number of books and they have covered a wide range – historically, culturally, ethnically, fictional and non-fictional. So I have encountered a wide range of styles over the years. Through some ill-defined process of educational osmosis, I acquired a sense for putting a sentence together and combining sentences into paragraphs.

But if you ask me to break one of my sentences down and describe it in grammatical terms, I can’t. I can give you a few rudimentary answers like, “This is the noun. That’s the verb. I think this word here may be a modifier, but I’m not sure what kind.”

Sometimes I write sentences I know are ungrammatical (such as this post’s title). I do this quite a bit in these posts but it’s often deliberate as I try to achieve a more conversational style of writing or other effect. But sometimes it’s because I’m just not aware the grammar is poor.

I’m not sure there is any point to this post other than to caution others that I’m not the grammatical expert some of them may think. It’s also to argue that writing and grammar, while profoundly related, are not the same thing. Grammar is the rules that govern writing; writing is … well, writing. Sometimes it’s grammatical; sometimes it ain’t.

It’s very much like the work I did years ago in radio when I worked at producing radio ads using microphones, mixing boards and so on. I knew how to work the technology to put together an ad. But I couldn’t have told you how the equipment worked to save my life.