Now I'm sure that every one of you is just thrilled to know that Mar. 4 is National Grammar Day. I had never heard of it until yesterday. National Grammar Day was established in 2008 so it only took me four years to find out about it.
Many bloggers from time to time make comments about their writing ability and specifically with relation to grammar. People know that there is a grammar which is made up of rules for correct writing. People will say a remember taking grammar in school but I can't remember any of it. I remember taking a grammar quiz in teachers' college and it showed I didn't know the difference between a noun and a verb. I got sentenced to remedial grammar and couldn't get out until I passed the test.
Sadly, I think there are potentially many excellent bloggers out there who do not blog because they are concerned about the grammar thing.
I applaud all bloggers I follow for their willingness to write! That is the key goal ...to write. Some bloggers write as they talk and their posts have an interesting flavor. For these blogs if they changed their style I probably wouldn't follow them. Other bloggers are more aware of some rules but also like to use an informal style which will be more appealing to the reader. A few blogs are written quite accurately when it comes to grammar.
I have two grammar police on my blog. It's been a long time since they've done anything with my writing. It was always surprising how much editing they did. So I thank Jock Mckenzie for supplying me with help. Jock has written a novel Dealing with Dymans. MK is my daughter and she's a real stickler. I can learn a lot form her. She is also an excellent writer. My third adviser is Brian T. Kline and he is an excellent writer. He has very tightly controlled and logical writing. One of his jobs was to turn engineering language to regular language so sales people could describe their products. But with all this help I still like to write in an informal style.
Basic grammar is very simple. It's right or wrong stuff. For people to get grammar it has to be applied. You have to apply grammar to your own writing as you write or look at it after you've written. Grammar is easy to teach but it's difficult to teach well. Sadly today grammar is rarely taught. I still wish I had a basic grammar text in the house. Wait a minute , couldn't I find all the grammar explained on the net?
So to all my followers "Happy Grammar Day" or whatever appropriate thing you're supposed to say.
