English Grammar: A Desperate Story of Angst

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.