I'm having a grammatical conundrum

[XerXesXu]

No, @StillStunned got it right. You can't be unorthodox, or have an outside-the-box perspective, if you don't know where the orthodox box is (or indeed, like in case of children, that it even exists). You'll just spit out an unstructured mix of both the conventional and the unconventional, unconscious and unaware where the boundaries lie. While you may call that creativity, it's really just blind groping of the concept space, ignorant to where the truly original and creative areas exist that may eventually push those boundaries further outward.

Nonsense.

SS would be thrown out of a story if one omitted question marks from the end of grammatically constructed sentences. Even the 'notoriously illiterate' Cormac McCarthy didn't do that. Nevertheless, those question marks are entirely redundant; they add nothing to the text which is not already there. Noone knows who invented that convention or why. As a mark of dubiety, they have a purpose.

Your metaphor of 'the orthodox box' is apt. It cramps your style. You'll write like a jobsworth if you write within 'the box'. The elements of 'style' in the sense of 'style guide', are every bit as much part of the creative endeavour as the text.

Do you think everything under the sun evolves - except 'style'. Maybe you're a creationist, 'if it's in the bible it must be so'. Be aware that there's no one creativity, there are as many creativities as there are truths.

 

[SimonDoom]

It's the other way around. We all start out exploring the unorthodox, then are taught orthodoxy at school. Listen to children speak, look at how they spell, see how creative they are with paint. I was in a skiffle group when I was 9 or 10, we were terrific. Education tames our natural creativity and exuberance, which we have to re-learn when we escape.

I think this has more to do with the type of education we receive than "education" per se. No doubt about it, the way education is often imposed on children can act like a straitjacket on creativity. But I think it's true of almost every human endeavor that education, very broadly speaking, is essential to mastering the endeavor, whether you are writing music, sculpting, building a chair, designing a bridge, removing spleens, or writing erotic stories. There are countless examples of writers creating great art by "breaking" the so-called rules, but knowing the rules in the first place is important. Picasso learned how to draw life-like people before he embarked on the style that made him famous. If we just handed kids pieces of paper and crayons and let them be creative, they'd never produce anything worthwhile. Education gives them the tools to move from scribblings to great art.

I think history proves this. Most "great" artists, of any field, spent a long time learning how to do what they became great at. They learned the "rules," even if they learned them more through practice and observation than through strict classroom education, then they learned how to bend or break them.

In most of the cases where I see grammar issues raised in this forum, and people propose or wonder about doing things contrary to the "rules" of grammar, I think they would be better off if they took a little more time to know those rules, and would be more informed about how and when to break them. Mindful writing is better than unmindful writing, usually, but you have to know what to be mindful of to do it.

 

[StillStunned]

Nonsense.

SS would be thrown out of a story if one omitted question marks from the end of grammatically constructed sentences. Even the 'notoriously illiterate' Cormac McCarthy didn't do that. Nevertheless, those question marks are entirely redundant; they add nothing to the text which is not already there. Noone knows who invented that convention or why. As a mark of dubiety, they have a purpose.

One omitted question mark? Typos happen. If every single sentence phrased as a question is missing the question mark, that's a deliberate choice, and I'd wonder what the writer is trying to achieve. If only a third of them are missing, or question marks are added where they're not needed to indicate a question, that tells me the writer is sloppy or doesn't understand how they work.

Notice the difference between making a deliberate choice, and randomly placing or omitting them. One implies that the writer knows what they're doing, the other implies that they can't be arsed to spend five minutes learning the most basic of writing tools.

Your metaphor of 'the orthodox box' is apt. It cramps your style. You'll write like a jobsworth if you write within 'the box'. The elements of 'style' in the sense of 'style guide', are every bit as much part of the creative endeavour as the text.

Do you think everything under the sun evolves - except 'style'. Maybe you're a creationist, 'if it's in the bible it must be so'. Be aware that there's no one creativity, there are as many creativities as there are truths.

I'd hazard a guess that virtually every attempt at creativity here on Lit has to do with content and style, not grammatical rules. Remember that we were talking about grammar? If you mess around with the basic rules - the building blocks of language, the ones that are implicitly understood to be more or less firm - the resulting confusion will interfere with the reader's experience. Unless that's what the writer is trying to achieve, then it simply detracts from the reader's enjoyment of the story.

So if you're going to mess around, you'd better know what you're doing, and why, and how it's going to affect the story, and how far you can take it. I've seen plenty of comments along the lines of "the writer needs to learn grammar!", and none saying "wow, this avant-garde writer is really pushing the boundaries of what we understand the reading experience to be!"

Final comment: I can't believe that I'm having to defend basic writing skills on a writers' forum.

 

[SimonDoom]

So if you're going to mess around, you'd better know what you're doing, and why, and how it's going to affect the story, and how far you can take it. I've seen plenty of comments along the lines of "the writer needs to learn grammar!", and none saying "wow, this avant-garde writer is really pushing the boundaries of what we understand the reading experience to be!"

Final comment: I can't believe that I'm having to defend basic writing skills on a writers' forum.

It surprises me too. The reality is, there are very few "grammar Nazis," if any, in this forum, and to the extent there is an attitude that the forum is filled with such Nazis it's because a) people are ignorant and defensive about their ignorance, or b) they're being contrary and they like being contrary, or striking a contrary pose.

Writing is a communicative enterprise, and to do it well it helps to know the basic tools of communicating words to another person.

Grammar, properly understood, is enabling, not stifling.

 

[SimonDoom]

I wont use checkers; they dont get it right often enough.

Checkers are helpful if you use them to catch possible errors and then use your own judgment about whether they are really errors or not.

 

[curioustxn]

My problem is I don't agree with certain grammatical norms and am feeling all artistic and petulant about it. For instance, when writing 'my dear' I am writing 'My Dear' because I feel like it should be so. My question is, am I being snotty, ridiculous or reasonable? My vote is ridiculous.

Whether to capitalize or not depends on context. With that said however, if you want to be successful as a writer, you have to write what the reader wants to read. As a writer, you are the seller of a story - - the reader is the buyer.

 

[XerXesXu]

One omitted question mark? Typos happen. If every single sentence phrased as a question is missing the question mark, that's a deliberate choice, and I'd wonder what the writer is trying to achieve. If only a third of them are missing, or question marks are added where they're not needed to indicate a question, that tells me the writer is sloppy or doesn't understand how they work.

Notice the difference between making a deliberate choice, and randomly placing or omitting them. One implies that the writer knows what they're doing, the other implies that they can't be arsed to spend five minutes learning the most basic of writing tools.

I'd hazard a guess that virtually every attempt at creativity here on Lit has to do with content and style, not grammatical rules. Remember that we were talking about grammar? If you mess around with the basic rules - the building blocks of language, the ones that are implicitly understood to be more or less firm - the resulting confusion will interfere with the reader's experience. Unless that's what the writer is trying to achieve, then it simply detracts from the reader's enjoyment of the story.

So if you're going to mess around, you'd better know what you're doing, and why, and how it's going to affect the story, and how far you can take it. I've seen plenty of comments along the lines of "the writer needs to learn grammar!", and none saying "wow, this avant-garde writer is really pushing the boundaries of what we understand the reading experience to be!"

Final comment: I can't believe that I'm having to defend basic writing skills on a writers' forum.

Oh dear. I think you've misread the impersonal personal pronoun as the number 1.

You're very odd. Why do you suggest that only a proportion of redundant question marks should be omitted? Why not all of them? Setting up straw men doesn't serve you well.

Ditto.

We're talking about style, not grammar. Another guru who doesn't know the difference.

You're not defending anything: you're flailing aimlessly.

 

[XerXesXu]

b) they're being contrary and they like being contrary, or striking a contrary pose.

If your preconceptions were never challenged, do you imagine you'd ever grow as a person or a writer. Staying within your comfort zone is comfortable, but it doesn't help you grow in any way. Do you never ask yourself -Why?

 

[yowser]

Whether to capitalize or not depends on context. With that said however, if you want to be successful as a writer, you have to write what the reader wants to read. As a writer, you are the seller of a story - - the reader is the buyer.

I think the writer/reader relationship is far more complicated and multi-layered than this. Readers don't always know what they want. They often can identify it, but only after it's been delivered to their plate. Writers often don't know what readers want either, and the starting place for them is frequently quite a different place.

Creation takes a lot of work, and for writers the fussy bits of grammar are the rules of putting together something that is going to stand up. The folks who say none of these rules matter find out quickly that their own created edifice doesn't hold up well. (And nobody bothers to inhabit it.)

Good writers are also good readers - they know what works, they know skill when they see it, and often their goals are to put together the best thing that is possible, make it functionally sound but also aesthetically pleasing, maybe worth a closer look. And if you can get a reader to notice, you done good.

 

[SimonDoom]

If your preconceptions were never challenged, do you imagine you'd ever grow as a person or a writer. Staying within your comfort zone is comfortable, but it doesn't help you grow in any way. Do you never ask yourself -Why?

One should always be open to the possibility that the contrary view is the correct one, and I try to do just that, but the "contrarian's fallacy," as I call it, is that contrarians too often think that just because something is contrary it's right, and that's not so. The contrarian must be open to the possibility that the normal, majority way of doing things has something going for it.

 

[XerXesXu]

The contrarian must be open to the possibility that the normal, majority way of doing things has something going for it.

But you don't know what it is or why it is. If you did, you'd have said.

Disagreeing with you doesn't make one a contrarian, or indeed, 'a fucking asshole', as you once put it. Enough abusive language.

 

[alohadave]

The reality is, there are very few "grammar Nazis," if any, in this forum,

Most people who have been around long enough recognize that forum posting isn't 'real' writing. It's conversation, and that loosens things up quite a bit.

Plus, autocorrect on phones is a pain in the ass that inserts all kinds of weird errors.

 

[SimonDoom]

But you don't know what it is or why it is. If you did, you'd have said.

Disagreeing with you doesn't make one a contrarian, or indeed, 'a fucking asshole', as you once put it. Enough abusive language.

When did I ever use that term? I don't recall ever using that.

I just did a search and found no examples of my ever using the phrase "fucking asshole" in a thread or post.

 

[Comshaw]

My problem is I don't agree with certain grammatical norms and am feeling all artistic and petulant about it. For instance, when writing 'my dear' I am writing 'My Dear' because I feel like it should be so. My question is, am I being snotty, ridiculous or reasonable? My vote is ridiculous.

FITCTAJ
As far as I'm concerned (and I'm as far from an expert on such things as you can get) it falls into the realm of artistic license. I'm not authoring dissertations or technical papers. The type of writing I (and I assume you) do here doesn't call for staid, stuffy, 'perfect' language. It calls for eliciting feelings from the reader. And sometimes the best way to do that is step outside the box and do it differently than the 'experts' say it should be done. And if those 'experts' don't like it? See the first line of my post, which means: fuckem' if they can't take a joke.


Comshaw

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

My problem is I don't agree with certain grammatical norms and am feeling all artistic and petulant about it. For instance, when writing 'my dear' I am writing 'My Dear' because I feel like it should be so. My question is, am I being snotty, ridiculous or reasonable? My vote is ridiculous.

You don't have to be grammatically perfect; that's a rule all writers should adhere to.

 

[SteelPoint]

And just how often, would it be considered, do certain people use the "grammar/spelling/punctuation doesn't matter" argument as a matter of personal convenience?

During the course of my life I've met with many who, because they personally have never mastered "it" (whatever that may be), claim that "it" doesn't matter...

 

[XerXesXu]

When did I ever use that term? I don't recall ever using that.

I just did a search and found no examples of my ever using the phrase "fucking asshole" in a thread or post.

You have a convenient memory; I have an accurate memory.

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

And just how often, would it be considered, do certain people use the "grammar/spelling/punctuation doesn't matter" argument as a matter of personal convenience?

During the course of my life I've met with many who, because they personally have never mastered "it" (whatever that may be), claim that "it" doesn't matter...

I didn't say that any of that didn't matter. But no one should be a slave of grammar. As to spelling, if you indicate a peculiar way some individuals pronounce words, you have to misspell them to get the sound right. In dialog, not everything should be perfect grammar because people don't often talk with perfect grammar.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Ahhhh, another AH thread gets AH'd.

Y'all should be super duper proud of the impressions you make on non-involved passersby.


Killer grammar there Ah?

 

[StillStunned]

Oh dear. I think you've misread the impersonal personal pronoun as the number 1.

No I didn't. You wrote, "if one omitted question marks":

SS would be thrown out of a story if one omitted question marks from the end of grammatically constructed sentences.

Then I listed three scenarios involving omitted question marks, and my response to each of them.

You're very odd. Why do you suggest that only a proportion of redundant question marks should be omitted? Why not all of them? Setting up straw men doesn't serve you well.

I didn't:

One omitted question mark? Typos happen. If every single sentence phrased as a question is missing the question mark, that's a deliberate choice, and I'd wonder what the writer is trying to achieve. If only a third of them are missing, or question marks are added where they're not needed to indicate a question, that tells me the writer is sloppy or doesn't understand how they work.

Three scenarios, based on your original "if one omitted question marks" premise, and my three responses.

We're talking about style, not grammar. Another guru who doesn't know the difference.

Fortunately I can still read. The thread title, for instance ("I'm having a grammatical conundrum"), and my earlier response:

I don't know much about art or music, but I understand that you need to master the orthodox basics before you can do anything unorthodox. Mondriaan was an accomplished painter before he started reducing his works to straight lines and primary colours. Jazz often sounds like pure improvisation, but there's an underlying basis in music theory.

The same with writing. You can play around with grammar, punctuation and style, but to do it effectively, you need to know what rules you're breaking - and why. Of course everyone understands language, and can form sentences, but it helps if you know what you're doing and what makes it effective if you do something different.

Call me a snob - perhaps I am, as a language professional - but I think everyone who attempts to write should know the basics. I've mentioned it before here in the forums, but why are people relying on software grammar checkers when grammar is the foundation of our hobby? That's like singers using autotune.

Don't know the rules? Look them up. All the time people spend on here debating minutiae of site rules, or researching what flavours of ice-cream were available in the summer of 1952, or how long it takes to recharge a Womanizer - use a fraction of that time to learn some basic grammar and punctuation rules. They're the tools of the trade.

Once you know them, you won't have to worry about "but Word's/Grammarly's grammar checker said....!" And when people complain about you using non-standard grammar, you can say, "I know, but here's what I was trying to achieve."

YMMV.

Before you start insulting people, you might want to check that you're not making a bit of a fool of yourself.

 

[SimonDoom]

You have a convenient memory; I have an accurate memory.

Prove it. I don't believe you. If I said it, you can find it. I looked for it and did not. Don't accuse people of things if you cannot prove it.

 

[XerXesXu]

No I didn't. You wrote, "if one omitted question marks":

Then I listed three scenarios involving omitted question marks, and my response to each of them.

I didn't:

Three scenarios, based on your original "if one omitted question marks" premise, and my three responses.


Fortunately I can still read. The thread title, for instance ("I'm having a grammatical conundrum"), and my earlier response:

Before you start insulting people, you might want to check that you're not making a bit of a fool of yourself.

How did the scenario of omitting some, but not all question marks after grammatically well-formed sentences drift into your head. Noone suggested that. I didn't. You did construct a straw man argument.

Now the penny's dropped, you've realised that the objective of 'style' in 'style-guide' is consistency. Style guides are corporate, first produced at the death of the 19th C by OUP, then CU, as guides for their typographers. Noone suggested inconsistency for the purpose of being perverse. Of course, one should be consistent. Having said that, inconsistently omitting redundancies results in no harm to the sense of what's written.

You read, but did not understand the thread title. He was having a stylistic conundrum (capitalisation), but, like you, doesn't distinguish between grammar and style. Grammar constructs and makes SPOKEN language intelligible. The sole purpose of 'style' is to make WRITTEN language conform to the needs of whichever corporation issued the style-guide.

As we've discussed before, does your living depend on your believing in a style-guide?

 

[XerXesXu]

Prove it. I don't believe you. If I said it, you can find it. I looked for it and did not. Don't accuse people of things if you cannot prove it.

I can easily prove it.

I swear by almighty God that I shall tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I have a clear recollection of SimonDoom calling another poster on AH a 'fucking asshole'.

It was in the context of a routine spat between himself and another poster, on that occasion about how high the bar for exclusion from AH on the grounds of personal abuse should be set. His opponent was forcibly arguing for a high bar, far above common and vulgar abuse. SD was arguing for a very low bar, amounting almost to want of collegiality, a hard-line exclusionary rule. In a post of the most artless comedy ever seen on AH, SD blurted out that his opponent was a 'fucking asshole' and the bar should be set far below common and vulgar abuse.

Such merriment. Unforgettable.

I believe we've discussed your habit of asking others to look up things for you. Does the expression 'idle fellow' ring any bells?

 

[WittyUserName]

Context is I don't agree with the 'rules of English grammar' and it pisses me off a bit because I know that grammar hardos are going to leave crappy responses about it

I can be like that. I used to use a period at the end of spoken text before the dialogue tag. Grammatically, it's supposed to be a comma, which bugged the heck out of me. Still does, in fact. I do it the 'right way' now. I also used to have a habit of capitalizing pet names. "My Dear" wasn't one I used, but "Baby" was a big one. It was something the character only called one person, so it was essentially a proper noun in my mind. I get it. What I would say is, just be consistent. Even if you explain yourself, people will still argue with you. I posted a very long story as one submission for a contest(and placed third). I explained before the story started why it wasn't broken up into chapters. It had to be standalone for the contest. I still had people arguing I was wrong for doing it. You can't please everybody, no matter what you do. Don't try. Just be consistent. If you've always been capitalizing "My Dear" I say keep doing it!

 

[KachinaDoll]

Cormac McCarthy wrote without punctuation and he gets shit all the time about it.

Write however you want, just be prepared for negative reactions if you do.

One of the reasons I gave up on reading him after about six pages.