Grammar is a subject that brings out strong feelings in people!
In fact, I had a little romance fizzle out shortly because of grammar. The year was 2001. It was Christmas time in Southern California. All my friends were coming home from college, and the gang was getting together to watch the much anticipated Lord of the Rings. I was one of the few who had stayed in town post-high school (community college! What what!!). Seeing as it was opening weekend and we needed the perfect seats, I volunteered to hold our spot in line. That meant showing up to the theater 5 hours in advance. When I got there, I was the third person in line and in front of me was Brewster. Yup, his name was Brewster-as in Punky. He was going to see the movie solo, so I invited him to join us. There would be a group of 20 soon, what was one more person. But apparently, that invitation meant something else to Brewster. He spent the next 5 hours glued to my side. He was a nice enough guy, just a little awkward, I thought. He asked for my number, and I gave him my email address. I thought it was a little safer. His first letter came in the next day. It was maybe four sentences long and had about 50 grammatical mistakes. It was at that moment that I realized we were never ever getting back together.
Grammer Makes Words Better
Good grammar matters. You can write some of the most compelling arguments or impassioned prose, and bad grammar negates its effectiveness. I always run my writing through a grammar software to help myself out a little. What do you do to help you with your writing? Are you the one that always recites “I before E except after C”? Tell me about your grammar mishaps, love of Oxford commas, or tools for grammar success in the comments below!
