A Page for Alliance Writers... (Or any writers!)
http://www.theportlandalliance.org/writing
Rules of Grammar
A Page for Alliance Writers... (Or any writers!)
http://www.theportlandalliance.org/writing
Rules of Grammar
Rules of grammar exist. But personal writing styles provide special license to ignore or disobey
The Oxford comma is correct when used or not used consistently in any piece of writing.
Certain types of writing (poetry, creative prose, private notes, email,
novels, vernacular, dialog, etc)
can most often be written in various
(even truculent) styles which may transcend, ignore, or purposely
violate grammar rules for myriad purposes and ends.
Many imaginative writers and creative thinkers feel constrained by rules
and inclined to rebel.
There is much to be said for thinking outside or
underneath the box, or even for thinking without
consideration for
boxes. Without lurid imagination, creative synthesis, and variable
styles...
writing might be less interesting, pedantic, and shallow. Or
not.
But after having said all of this, for whatever reasons, the rules of
grammar will still be written
on the board (whiteboard, blackboard,
screen, or monitor) by imperious, surreptitious, clandestine,
or
collaborative teachers (at least for as long as teachers continue to
bother to learn the rules).
And this baseline of rules will continue to
inspire rebellion. Many who are wont to rewrite the
rules or simply feel
compelled to break them... might be well advised to remember the
admonitions
of George Orwell.
"In 1946, writer George Orwell wrote an impassioned essay, 'Politics and
the English Language'.
He railed against dangers he saw in 'ugly and
inaccurate' contemporary written English – particularly
in politics
where 'pacification' can be used to mean "defenseless villages are
bombarded from the air,
the inhabitants driven out into the countryside,
the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with
incendiary
bullets...".
The baseline of grammar rules do matter. Many would not deign to rewrite
them. Instead some look
upon the
rules we have been provided as totemic mysteries. We continue to
observe the rules when this
is the most effective method for delivering a
particular message to a clearly defined audience. And at
other times...
we choose to break the rules, deconstruct language, transcend
tradition, and explode
perceptions to embrace epiphany, translate chaos,
and avoid confusion.
The bottom line of language, linguistics, and communication is this...
while we may be captives...
constrained and restricted by the human
condition... we are more than this.
So much more than
can be expressed by commas... serial, Oxford, or
otherwise. And much of this, who and what we are,
will in time be
communicated beyond the realm of language, in a symbiosis of emotion,
spiritual
underpinnings, and blossoming joys and delights as yet barely
imagined, demurely suggested, or
lightly sketched. And when we arrive at
this intersection... all of our language may fall away
into new beginnings.
So yes! "There is a spoon" (and a fork and knife): however pointless all
three may be to one
who hungers. Rules, grammar, and syntax
matter... but only for so long as we imagine some
need to translate
chaos. But the day may arrive when we become enmeshed, and chaos:
harmonious, melodic, and compelling becomes us. And we become it.
If
this point arrives, we may reinvent the rules. Are we there yet?
Tim Flanagan, Associate editor of The Portland Alliance
