After completing the
second revision of my first novel, Toil
Under the Sun, I acknowledged (one night during a rainstorm) the
possibility of subtle deficiencies in my knowledge of English grammar. At first
I tried to convince myself that any shortcomings were likely irrelevant to the successful
completion of the novel (a process that would require four additional revisions
and three more years), but within days of this agonizing self-awareness I decided
to set the novel aside and to award myself a “grammar sabbatical.” Although a
year is customary for an academic sabbatical, I did not set a specific time
period. Instead, I developed a reading list of books, a process that consumed over
two weeks, and then committed to reading all of them with the profoundest
comprehension I could muster, even if it required more than a year.
Fortunately, because I doubt that I could have sustained my interest in English
grammar much longer, I finished the last book six months later. Here is the
list of books:
The
American Heritage Book of English Usage
The
only Grammar Book You’ll Ever Need,
Susan Thurman
Style
– Toward Clarity and Grace, Joseph M. Williams
Eats,
Shoots & Leaves,
Lynne Truss
The
Elements of Style,
Strunk and White
Woe
is I, Patricia T.
O’Conner
I recommend them all,
although The American Heritage Book of
English Usage and Style - Toward
Clarity and Grace are not light reading and will require you to ascend to a
mental plateau of abnormal dedication. So that you don’t have to read any of
them, here is a shortlist of things that I learned during my self-imposed grammar
sabbatical:
- Rules
of English grammar are often derived directly from Latin, a mostly dead
and obscure language once used by an ancient culture that fell into a prolonged
period of corruption and abject depravity before a horde of Germanic barbarians
called Vandals overran the empire and sacked the capital city in the year
455 and destroyed everything they could get their hands on. The Latin
rules of grammar survived.
- If
you study English grammar two hours a day for six months, you will have
expended 360 hours of effort and the quality of your writing will improve
not a whit.
- Always
prefer clarity and grace to proper grammar. This is my absolute rule.
- Use
adjectives to modify nouns and adverbs to modify verbs or adjectives or other
adverbs. If you screw this up, the reader might judge you a fool and stop
reading.
- Avoid
arguments about grammar during meetings. No one will listen to you anyway.
- Use
“control-alt negative sign” to manually insert a proper “em dash” before
and after a parenthetical phrase—I prefer no space between the dash and
adjacent words—and never allow MS
Word to automatically insert that mousy little joke-of-a-dash for you.
- Locate
the primary point of each paragraph at the end of each paragraph, not at
the beginning as you were constantly told in high school English classes.
Your readers will appreciate the improved clarity.
- Do
not fear the use of “and” or “but” or similar conjunctions at the beginning
of a sentence if it promotes grace and clarity.
- Prefer
clear and graceful words to impressive words.
- Strive
for writing that is seamlessly transparent to the reader. Never write to
impress the reader with your cleverness: you will only create an irritating
distraction.
- Prefer
action verbs to verbs of being. Instead of “She was upset.” write “Her lips
quivered with rage.”
- Prefer
active voice to passive voice. Instead of “The ball was hit by John into
left field.” write “John smashed the ball to left.”
- Do not admit to your friends or wife or brother-in-law or colleagues or anyone that you are studying English grammar. At first they will question your sanity, but very soon they will begin asking probing questions like, “Sweetheart, would you call this a gerund or a present participle?” and expect you to damn well know the answer.
There you have it. There
is probably more to say about English grammar, but I’ll leave it to you to sort out when you find the time.
