Work has picked up, miracle of miracles. But Achewood had a great strip about spelling years and years ago. Too big to post here, or I would.

(If you find yourself liking the comic, please go back and start at the beginning.)

Labels: geekery, National Grammar Day, spelling

Here's a National Grammar Day comic for you, from the always-excellent Basic Instructions. Click here for their larger version.

Labels: geekery, National Grammar Day

Outside the realm of comic books, the best arguments for prescriptivism are invariably pragmatic.

Maybe I'm just being naive, but it seems like most grammatical prescriptions, even the crazy ones, came about because someone thought the text would be more readable that way. For example, even though the "avoid the passive voice" rule is much too blunt, it's true that "the active voice is usually more direct and vigorous than the passive."

The novelty of the UChicago academic writing program was its extremely pragmatic approach: the intro course focused on things like subject continuity and sentence order. When pressed, one instructor told me that there was actually research behind all these new guidelines, proof they would make our writing more readable. It was hard to find fault with this purportedly scientific prescriptivism.

Editors have to consider other factors — correctness, conformity, veracity, elegance — but our fundamental concern is readability. We're there to make sure the text communicates its ideas effectively. That post about a National Clarity Day has it exactly right.

It's a shame that grammatical prescriptions don't always have much to do with readability. Dangling modifiers could trip up the reader, I can see that, but has ignorance of the which vs. that distinction ever done any harm?

(See also: Dryden's proscription of sentence-final prepositions, which is prettymuch completely ignored these days.)

Labels: editing, grammar politics, National Grammar Day

Do you adore clean, correct sentences? Do ungrammatical advertisements make you cringe? We understand completely, and this is why the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar and MSN Encarta have designated March 4, 2008 as National Grammar Day.

Today is National Grammar Day. John McIntyre was spotted wandering the streets yesterday in his camel-hair suit (seasonal), joyously proclaiming the impending Grammarocalypse. There were even rumors that four horsemen had been spotted...

Which is to say: count me among those who worry that this holiday will just empower would-be pedants.

I mean, obviously it will — "Do ungrammatical advertisements make you cringe?" is a clear appeal to the Princess and the Pea school of prescriptivism — but after today, will we have a better-informed public, or just more people acting like assholes because they know not to use the word irregardless?

For the most part, the posts so far from National Grammar Day partner blogs have given me some reason for optimism:

Grammar Girl provided good usage advice and pointed out some common misconceptions in Top 10 Language Myths.

At You Don't Say, McIntyre described his eventual realization that sloppy writing is not a moral failing and invited all of us to enjoy a Grammartini. I can definitely get behind that idea.

And Mighty Red Pen, after surveying the evolving Grammar Day controversy, wrote:

MRP is proud to be a National Grammar Day participating blog. As such, I intend to embrace the spirit of the day, which to me is to celebrate the joy and complexity of language, and our shared interest in it.

I'm too much of a language geek not to appreciate National Grammar Day, whatever my complaints about its specific focus. And I'd rather represent mystery shop editors and militant reactive grammarians and whatever else I am than pout on the sidelines.

So I'll be "liveblogging" throughout the day today (if I could make those scarequotes scarier, I would) until work picks up and/or I run out of stuff to post.

Labels: grammar politics, National Grammar Day