Grammar Poll

[Redlass]

Grammar is only one block in the writing pyramid. How important of a block is it?

I saw this poll on a writer's site and was curious how your opinions compare.

[soxfan[$]]

It may be just one block, but it's in the bottom row!

Knowing grammar makes it easier to construct sentences that can be understood (really, the first step).

Even those who choose not to write with perfect grammar should know how - the "you have to understand the rules before you can break" them sort of thing.

Ailsa

[nicholmere]

I believe it is absolutely essential. Of course I am not saying I have mastered all the rules of grammar, but I do try my best.

However, once a writer knows the rules then I think it is acceptable for them to intentionally bend them, especially in poetry.

[purplewiz]

Grammar is the key to communicating via language. You cannot break the rules until you not only know what they are, but how they work together, and what the expected results may be.

I don't ask that all writers be perfect grammarians (goodness knows I'm not). But sometimes I wish a few more would try.

(I think this posting comes after reading a string of Not Helpful reviews, and the frustration that engendered.)

[KateTPZ]

I agree that's it's absolutely essential.

I'll bet if you could get a lot of Epinions members to take this poll you'd get a much different response! (At least that's what I think based on some of the horrendous reviews I've read lately!)

[Yarborough]

I voted for "Important but not essential". English is so complex and so many "rules" have so many exceptions.

The thing is, are you trying to communicate or trying to impress? There is a big difference. You need to know your audience. If you send someone to a dictionary, or they go to someone else to ask what it means, then you have failed to communicate.

When struggling to compose a sentence and when in doubt, I
write it the way I would say it, as if the person was right in front me. That's my favorite rule.

So if you write the way you speak, and people still don't like it, well that's just who you are and what you are and there isn't a whole lot that can be done about it.

UPDATE
I took this to mean on Epinions.com. Sorry, never mind.
I wasn't talking about something like the President. Like what is the proper gammar for something like:

"I did not......have....sexual relations."

[AuntieEmma[$]]

I think it depends a lot on the situation. If there's a situation where you expect someone's writing (or speaking) to be highly polished and it's not, then that makes them seem less credible.

Like the letter I mentioned in another thread from the Writtenbyme staff which was filled with grammatical and spelling errors -- I have an expectation that people who are running a writing site and are selecting and selling other people's writing to publishers will themselves have a good grasp of the basics, and when they don't, it makes me wonder what's going on, if they're incompetent or maybe even running a scam. It's because my expectations have been confounded.

Same thing with Bush -- I have an expectation that politicians, especially at that level, are skilled and polished public speakers, and when they're not, I'm left with a nagging sense that something is not right here.

A local example -- the morning newspaper was recently taken over by new management and within their first couple of weeks, among numerous other errors, they managed to misspell such obscure words as "Wednesday" and "San Francisco" in the masthead! Not what you expect from a major urban newspaper, and it hurt their credibility and gave support to the sentiment that the paper's sale had been totally corrupt in the first place.

But sometimes it doesn't matter nearly as much. I give people a lot more slack online on bulletin boards and on places like Epinions, where I'm not expecting perfection. For one thing, getting all the grammar right is often a multi-person job. Most writers don't have a 100% complete grasp of all of the rules, and even if they do, they're likely to miss errors when proofreading. That's where copyeditors come in. And on bulletin boards and Epinions, where work isn't edited, I don't think it's fair to hold people to the same standards that I would use for a major newspaper or magazine.

Also grammar in a sense can be relatively trivial because it's the easiest thing to change. I remember learning that Theodore Dreiser (sp?) couldn't write a grammatically correct sentence to save his life -- and his editor took his manuscript, chopped out about two-thirds of it, and cleaned up the grammar. What emergered was what is now a classic novel. It was a collaborative effort, in a sense, between author and editor, but I would say that Dreiser's contribution was the most important because it was the hardest to replace. Many people, presumably, could have done a good job of editing the book, but probably none of them could have written the book in the first place.