Re: health warning

I'd like to add, though, that Matthew has a legitimate concern. My
girlfriend is a FREAK about grammar. Her High School teachers would fail her
for a single sentence fragment in any of her papers (not fail her for the
class, but for that paper). She will AGONIZE over her sentences, she will
SUFFER for them, but seldom, seldom, will she WRITE them -- getting her to
finish something she's written is like pulling teeth sometimes. She
sometimes sounds like the purpose of good writing is to follow grammatical
rules rather than to communicate, instead of thinking that the purpose of
grammatical rules is to help communication.

Our most bitter argument was over my use of a comma in something I'd
written. I felt like the sentence needed a pause. She said my use of the
comma was incorrect. I showed her in a grammar that a comma is an option in
that situation. The comma is now one of those subjects we try to discreetly
avoid.

Usually.

She feels convinced that my grammar was wrong :). Or has blocked what it
said out of her memory.

Jim

Matt Kozusko wrote:

> On Wed, 4 Sep 2002, Matthew S. Mahoney wrote:
>
> : load of mahoney?
>
> Yes. Like "baloney."
>
> Anybody serious about writing should take grammar and its attendant
> conventions equally seriously. Don't trivialize the issue by reducing it
> to a matter of oppressed students and stifled creativity. Or by reducing
> it to "subtle placement of commas, etc." Or by continuing to peddle this
> nonsense about grammar and content being independent matters. Before
> long, you'll be declaiming righteously about how ideas and inspirations
> exist separately from language.
>
> Matt
>
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