Wordsmithing: A Response to Grammar

What does it matter, the things we use, the things we write? Why should we learn their names and their markings, a scholarly field guide of our art form? Wordsmithing is more brutal, and bashes out its craft upon its forge. It cares not whether the arc of the hammer was too curt, but rather whether the blow rang true. Trial by error is the motto of the writer, for smiths live by their instincts and know that a work finely crafted cannot be hampered by a suffocating mold. Risks are meant to be taken, and “rules” are nothing more than guidelines, not the golden-paved stones to glory.

Words are like colors. Writers don’t entirely care how that precise word functions, no more than a painter cares what the exact name of that color is they’re using. It’s a blend of the primaries, and no more. Much the same, a writer doesn’t set out thinking, “I need a verb in the reflexive, subjunctive mood following a noun clause that closely enough resembles an appositive to give the MLA and APA organizations migraines for centuries.” Writers just don’t care. Our words flow out of us like a flood-season river. The grammar gets swept along by the torrential downpour, and when the debris settles, if it’s out of place it gets rearranged properly.

Grammarians forget this. And they forget, or are willingly ignorant or even despiteful of, the impulsive, chaotic nature of writing as art. Writing is art. Art needs freedom. Art needs air. Art needs life! But the grammarians chain the words beneath labels and ‘correctness,’ bogging writers down with nothing but “Thou shalt nots.”

It’s time they heard something, something very important. This is life changing for the grammarian way of life: grammar is subjective.

Ah! The horror! The atrocities of that statement! Grammar is objective, you fool! Grammar is the law by which your language functions, which keeps it alive. Without grammar, language and communication would cease, would shrivel up and die, and you’d be powerless to stop it with no way of communicating.

Yes, the ranting, the litany, the mindless drivel of grammarians. I’ve heard most, if not all of it, throughout my crusade as a free-spirited writer. How they love to bash and banter about, while completely ignoring this one teensie little issue. The objectivity of grammar is one of their oldest and securest strongholds. Remove that, and they lost the war.

For those new to the frontlines, a quick explanation of objectivity versus subjectivity. Objectivity means something that’s a universal rule, that must be abided by, and that is correct regardless of opinion or perspective. Subjectivity means something that’s determined by preference, bias, preconceived notions, and other related relativistic devices. Basically, non-relative (objective) versus relative (subjective).

The problem of the grammarians’ lack of understanding pivots on the fact that they are trying to make language static so as to get their objective rules established. And they’re running into two issues. First, language is dynamic; it’s constantly changing. Second, their rules are observational—they’re based on how we use our words. Grammar is caused by language, not a cause of language.

Over the course of the English language, we’ve had a lot of outside influences. In fact, English can’t even really be called “our” language. English, linguistically, is a descent of German, and over time we’ve adopted words from French, Greek, Latin, Norman, Dutch, Spanish…you name it, we’ve probably got it. English is an assimilative language: when we brush up against other languages, given enough time we absorb ‘foreign’ words into our vocabularies, domesticate and naturalize them. Can you imagine the heartache of grammarians trying to oppose incorporating these new words into our language? “No! That’s not even a word! It’s (insert other language here)!” And yet we have those words, whether the grammarians would or no. Imagine poor Shakespeare, with his host of invented words, up against this imposing institution. They would have flayed him alive for all his gobbledygook and gibberish.

Shakespeare in effect gave us Modern English. Now, I’m using “modern” in the linguistic sense (since a lot of Shakespearean English is considered archaic), but when you consider all the words that Shakespeare invented and the phrases he gave our language, he is definitely the most formative and influential English speaker in history. But he’s not the only one to coin words. Just take the sci-fi community. They’ve given us robotics, time travel, droid, clone, and virus, to name a few. Most of the time, these coined words are greeted with furrowed brows or revolted hisses by the grammarians, and receive a skeptical, “well, we’ll see how long this lasts.” Granted, not all invented words stick, but these have hung around, and are a common part of our daily lives.

Take “data,” for example. According to the scientific community and grammarians, that is a plural noun. Meaning, data are found on the Internet, and data are important in any analysis. But in common usage, those sentences have become data is found, and data is important. Incorrect, or just not grammatically correct? Well, actually, the answer is that the grammarians, and the scientists this time, are both wrong.

You see, there’s something called a collective noun. This is a function that’s composed of a group acting as a single unit. For example, Congress is a collective noun. Congress is composed of many people, but we say that “Congress is in session,” not “Congress are in session.” So the same can be said of data, which is composed of datum, that “data is what comprises most of the Internet,” and so on and so forth. The principle? Grammarians often just react to “threats against their authority and rules,” instead of checking their own rule book to see whether they could, horror of horrors, be wrong.

But then there’s times when they just plain disagree with the artists. “Singular they” has been a battleground I’ve traversed many, many times. Singular they is when you use “they” instead of “he” as a pronoun generic, i.e. they took their dog for a walk. Now, if that’s just one person, then the grammarians will be all over your hide for “improper grammar” and “political correctness doesn’t trump grammar.” But actually they’re disagreeing with a rich heritage of singular they users, such as Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, Jane Austin, and Mark Twain, to name a few. This isn’t political correctness or an archaism, it’s something that’s been in use for hundreds of years and hasn’t died out. This was created by our writers, and is in usage in the ‘common tongue.’

Now, I realize that the descriptive rules have been developed over hundreds of years of English usage, but language is dynamic. Our language continually undergoes change, and is in a state of growth right now, thanks to the Internet age. Netspeak or chat-speak is one form, and the assimilation of more Spanish, due to immigration, is another. Basic Spanish words are becoming a part of our daily lives, and Americans who don’t know a lick of Spanish understand hola, adios, uno a diez (one to ten), buenos dias, and are beginning to pick up on other Spanish words due to bilingual signs going up across the States. This is a modern form of the acquisitions English had during French and Danish rule, and by the end of this new learning curve, it’s hard to say what the final result will be.

But remember that the primary purpose of language is communication. There are only so many rules you can break before communication breaks down. Akiej lin mahoji? Means absolutely nothing. Be free to experiment, but keep in mind that some of those rules are there to preserve communication. Those are the ‘rules of thumb’ that are bedrock to making sure others can understand you. Which ones are those? Well, play around! Experiment. Find what you need, and what you don’t. Develop your own style, your own voice, and let your art flow. So just remember that the next time someone says that something’s not correct, if they understood it, it did its job.