Many of you have indicated that you enjoy electronic and informal writing because you don't feel the same pressure to use proper spelling/grammar. What would your definition of grammar be? How did you learn grammar in your previous education? What function do you think grammar plays in the writing process? Are there advantages/disadvantages to using proper grammar? Are there times when it is inappropriate to use it?
Feel free to explore the topic a little beyond the structure I've provided here. If you have a strong opinion or feeling for an aspect of grammar I haven't included here, please share it in your post!
As always, shoot for around 500 words in your response, which should be posted as a comment to this post.
Proper use of grammar has been nearly disposed of in writing. Grammar must be used properly in every aspect in the white dessert that is the sheet of paper. People and young students just put words together without even correcting the mistakes of placing sentences in areas that are not needed or should be place at another location.
ReplyDeleteEven in speech, some people mispronounce words by mistake or by a mere accident. someone more educated or more learned can help that person by correction. It the encourages one another to speak clearly, and allows them to further grow in their eternal education. To use proper grammar allows you to break walls of the ignorance that is the lesser society.
The Lesser Society is that of people who wish not to succeed in life but would rather live in the oyster that is the now, speaking of the "cool" people who are not interested or does not want to learn. Some will talk to you saying things that you really can't comprehend, as if English was a foreign language to them and they recreated the English Language. Street Talk, Slang, or whatever it can be called, is English within English.
For instance, my brother claims that gigolos are people who listen to ICP and dress in black. Gigolos, as I have told him, is another name for male prostitutes. However, he insists it means people who listen to ICP music. But when I learned that wasn't the case and my brother was wrong in his knowledge, these people called themselves Jugglos, people who listen to ICP music. I must digress, though, of this one word. Could it mean that the street smart individuals, who tattoo words onto their necks and such, come up with a combination for juggler, which is the same for a jester, and the word for a male prostitute, gigolo, and still have it accepted as a word?
But really, all these street smart, and even book smart people come up with names and words derived by other languages or letters.
The English Language is a living, breathing idea that continuously thrives. Let's not destroy it or bring it to the level of mere unintelligent beings, but avoid the half-breeds known as Slang and pronounce words using proper grammar. The idea needs to flourish and grow, so let's make it happen.
Electronic writing is easier for most people of generation. It is not as necessary to use proper grammar/spelling and most people will be able to understand you without the use of the proper spelling/grammar. Electronic communication requires less thought than physical writing on paper. For most people of our generation, electronic communication is much more relaxed than formal communications.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, proper grammar is that which we were taught from grade school until high school. It is the techniques that were in the grammar and english books used in school. Proper grammar consists of proper spelling, punctuation, and verb tenses. Using proper grammar makes your writing look more formal and makes you seem to be more educated. People will appreciate what you are saying and believe that you know what you're talking about if you use proper writing.
Using proper grammar makes sure that people understand completely what you are saying. If you use improper grammar, sometimes the meaning of what you are saying can become skewed. For example, "After rotting in the cellar for weeks, my brother brought up some oranges" (www.copyblogger.com). This sentence was supposed to convey that the oranges were rotting, but due to the punctuation, the sentence states that the brother was rotting. This is a prime example of why grammar is important.
While some people may argue that using proper grammar has some advantages and disadvantages, I do not see many disadvantages. There is always the excuse that it takes more times and wastes time; however, tusing proper grammar lets people know that you are educated, and causes less confusion. If there is proper spelling and grammar, chances are that you will not need to re-emplain something more than once.
My definition of good grammar would be the observation of as many rules of forming sentences of the language being written or spoken. This should be accompanied by avoiding common phrases, abbreviations when applicable, informal speech patterns and words. It is very hard for me to say where, when and how I was educated in grammar, I tend to just write as if I was speaking to someone of a much higher status if it is not directed to a particular group or individual. Usually, this means assuming a very high-brow attitude when forming and reading what was written. While advantageous in most regards, it would be foolhardy to say that there are no situations in which overly formal speech or writing would be damaging. Remaining strictly formal with people you are closer with or in a relationship with would be a great way to put distance between you and them, whether any party involved realizes it or not. The use of informal speech, slang, abbreviations, etc. is a way in which we show those we are closer towards than others that we are closer towards them than others.
ReplyDeleteThe use of very formal language is mostly reserved to those we have only business relationships with, usually towards those higher than ourselves, and is very important for establishing first impression. The use of proper grammar, higher vocabulary and formal language can and will set the tone for your relationship for a long time, possibly for the entire duration. If your first impression of someone is that they are a crude and standoffish person, your perception of them will change how you behave towards them, whether it is true of them or not. These behaviors will then give an impression to that person, which they will act upon. This cycle can and will continue, usually until one or both party’s true personality and behavior is made clear. For example, if your use of informal speech, slang and obviously incorrect grammar makes your boss think you are an incompetent fool, they will treat you like a fool. Their treatment of you as such will make you react differently towards them, either directly or indirectly, making the tension between your relationship all but palpable.
Proper grammer helps clarify the direction and meaning of the thought that you are trying get across. In a professional environment grammer is more important than it would be in a more social setting. For example, at work as I am typing a report, I am trying to explain in detail the events that occurred and/or the scene of the crime. The report must have proper grammer and written chronologically as the events occurred. It would be hard for the prosecutor to realize what actually happened if the events were typed out of order, or if there were long run-on sentences, etc. Also, a well written report with proper grammer shows a courtroom, defense attorney, judge, etc. that you are an educated person and have made educated decisions in your line of work. In a classroom setting, a paper that would be turned in with proper grammer would help to paint a picture of what thoughts you are trying to get across. There is nothing worse than an author of a paper having a strong opinion on an issue and not being able to allow the reader to feel the author's passion on that topic.
ReplyDeleteIn a more social setting though, proper grammer and etiquette is not as important due to the familiarity of the social group with the slang and loose use of the english language. For example on facebook, text messaging, etc. grammer is almost obscelete within the peer group. The message is still received and understood within the peer group. Facebook, text messages, and even in some emails using slang, acronyms, etc. is socially accepted. Even in certain work places such as the military and different police departments each have their own socially accepted lingo that is understood between co-workers, that would not be understood by others outside of the workplace. "Could you 17 with me" in that setting would be socially accepted within my department, but would not make sense to others outside of the department.
In summary situation/audience dictates the necessity of proper grammer or a looser form of the English language. The determining factor of the level of grammer needed should be based upon the level needed for the message to be received and understood by the target audience.
Having a 29 year old, English teacher as a sister has always sucked when writing, speaking, and reading. Never will I ask my older sister it revise any of my papers again because she loves playing with big words, when she was through with my previous papers I would sound like a robot resighting theasarus. While speaking I have been interupted numerous times for not speaking with correct grammer as if she has a mentle grammer check, which could become highly annoying, especially since I would always forget the point I was trying to make in my conversation. Often times my sister and I would rotate reading out loud books, at night before we went to sleep. While reading I would often be stopped mid-monologue being told that I did not pause in the appropriate place, because of course she took notice to the comma I blindly read over.
ReplyDeleteGrammer( an annoying english institution)that was created to unify writing with a structured list of rules that combines spelling, sentence structure, and punctuation to create our english writing/speaking system. In middle school and high school my teachers often times diagramed sentences and my personal favorite we would get sentences that we cut out of paper in pieces of object, subject, and predicate etc. and we had to put the sentence together correctly. If you or your group could not put the sentence together correctly the first time you kept doing it until it was correct. I believe grammer is stressed so much in school because without some sort of structure then we wouldn't have a structured functioning society because us as citizens could not communicate. Instituting grammer in the writing process is just a way to practice and preach our way to communicate. Often times I get extrememly annoyed by grammmer because I have to focus so much on proper grammer that I lose a touch of myself in my writing which is my disadvantage. Advantages to grammer is sounding really sofisicated and intelligent at times where you may be lacking the knowledge at some certain topics. An example of inapporpriate grammer usage to me is when people are mocking another person i their writing, don't dace around the subject just get to it. Grammer in a functioning society is imperative.
I personally like to use proper grammar whether I’m talking to friends and family or writing a serious paper. To me it just flows better and I feel confident in my writing when I know I’m using grammar properly. What someone hears or sees of your grammar can make a huge impression on them whether they are of a high stature or not. It will affect how they treat you and what they say to you. If you use mostly slang language when talking to someone they could just take you as a less educated person, whereas if you used proper grammar techniques they could see that you’re an educated person. What you write represents you as a person no matter who you’re talking to so although my family and friends are closer to me I still like them to see me as an educated person. Grammar for a lot of people now is a lost cause. They just throw words on a paper and don’t go back to look and see if it looks or sounds right even to them. For me writing is a passion and with that comes correct grammar.
ReplyDeleteGrammar to me is all of the tools and techniques that make your writing or speaking flow. It’s what holds everything together. If there was a paper or email composed of every other word being misspelled and no punctuation whatsoever what would its purpose be? It would most likely be ineligible and would have to be disregarded or composer be asked to repeat themselves more clearly. Grammar has been a main part of our education since day one of school when we were learning to spell the word ‘cat’. Spelling is a huge part of grammar. It amazing how many words go misspelled these days and people don’t even realize it doesn’t look right. Most likely because they’ve seen so many other people write it that way. I feel spelling isn’t as important now because of spell check and use of slang. People figure that when they’re typing out a paper or sending a text message all of the misspellings will be caught and if they’re not well then, too bad. When working with some of the kids on the newspaper staff at my school a lot of them will use slang words such as ‘gonna’ and think it is perfectly acceptable. They don’t realize that it’s wrong at all. Grammar isn’t something you can take and simply change it any way you want and expect it to work and be accepted. It is a form of art but it’s like intellectual art I feel. The rules are there because otherwise it would be mass chaos, just a jumble of tons of letters. It’s not to say grammar can’t grow but we as a society need to be sensible about the way we compose ourselves. It may make things faster to abbreviate or use slang. What would be the point of walking backwards though, right into an archaic style of language?
Grammar to me is the way things are supposed to be written to be formally correct. Too many people could not even tell the right or wrong way a word is suppose to be spelled. A simple period or comma is often overlooked now, making the sentence grammatically incorrect. Grammar is a set of rules that we are supposed to follow in order to speak and write in the English language correctly. Grammar is something I often overlook, but now that I am in college, it is a lot harder to look past as I start to write more and more papers and more profession emails.
ReplyDeleteLearning grammar was something I specifically did not enjoy growing up. I was never good knowing when to use a comma or semicolon or when to just start a new sentence. Especially trying to learn spanish in high school, I noticed that I did not know the English language well enough to learn a different language and sentence structure. It was not until the last couple years of my high school career that I truly learned grammar to what I know it as now.
Grammar plays a huge role in the writing process. It brings what you are trying to get across to your reader to life. It makes your thoughts and feelings complete. Using the correct spelling of a word makes the world of difference. With out the understanding of grammar in the English language, writing a paper or email or really anything, would not be possible. Misspellings and bad punctuation can ruin a paper.
Disadvantages of having bad grammar is ending up making yourself look like you were taught nothing throughout your whole schooling process. I know that if I were reading an application and they were qualified but everything was spelled incorrectly, they would not be hired. It looks extremely unprofessional. The advantage would be someone else who took the time to take the effort to make everything look professional would get the job instead. Bad grammar is inappropriate in a professional setting or when you are handing something in to be graded by a professor or instructor.
The definition of grammar to me is how you can put words together best to form a sentence that that is clear, makes sense and sounds good to the reader. I learned grammar through writing papers, when they would get corrected. I learned it through my English teachers just continuously correcting mistakes and harping on what was the right thing to say and what wasn't. I think grammar does play a big role in writing process. Grammar gives a paper structure. With the use of proper grammar it makes a paper make sense to the reader.
ReplyDeleteOverall its an advantage using proper grammar in writing because no matter what grammar is set in stone on what is supposed to be said and what isn't. For how ever long the way we write and use words has been the same with only some stuff changed, so it is only to our advantage to learn the proper way to say and write things. I wouldn't say there are times when its inappropriate to use proper grammar more like when you don't have to such as talking to someone over facebook or texting, because if you spent all your time trying to use proper grammar texting it would take for ever. Plus its a lot easier to when you don't have to spell everything out and its easy to just use acronyms. In the end its just easier that you learn the proper use of grammar.
The definition of grammar is putting together things in the proper order to make what one says and feels understood. I first learned grammar in elementary school then it was then supplementted in jr high and, high school. The teacher would usually teach us about it then pass out worksheets and have us do them and occasionally we would write short stories and letters and they would be evaluated from a grammatical standpoint.
ReplyDeleteGrammar plays an important part in the writing process because if people do not understand what you are writing then your meaning could be lost.
The advantage of writing this way is it makes your meaning clearer take for example a book without periods. That book would be terrible to read ,because you'd get a migrane from having to back track every so often and put in periods where sentences ended.
Some disadvanteges that one might find is well when you're writing a paper or letter or story a person can get involved in the story and begin to write just to get all the ideas or emotion out it can be some what frustrating to have to go back and make a million different tiny corrections.
There are of course appropriate times to use proper grammar and innapropriate times to use proper grammar propar times would be when giving a speech, or writing, a scholarship ,or grant letter ,or a letter of reccomendation in those cases it will make you look badly if you do not use proper grammer.
Inappropriate times can be when in a laid back social suituation or when texting ot iming. In texting and iming people may think u have not been texting very long or are a bit stuck up. when in a laid back social suituation say around a core group of friends using proper grammer may get you some weird looks from your friends.
Grammar, honestly I feel that your grammar is a lot about who you are. It’s your own style of writing that doesn’t just have to do with your ideas. Grammar is the way you present your ideas. Sometimes something’s need more than just a comma, sometimes they need a huge pause…… I feel that there are situations in which perfect grammar won’t get for point across just right. If I have a strong opinion about something I’m going to emphasize it! A lot! With exclamation points! If I’m really confused I’ll use multiple question marks. You see what I mean????? I like to write the way I talk, because it makes me feel more individual. Plus it seems to make it more readable. Perfect grammar seems to stifle your writing personality. When someone reads my writing I want them to say, “hmmmm… Tom Ulaszewski must have wrote this”…. Without ever reading my name. But I guess they would need to know me to know its mine. Eh whatever. Right now I’m just letting myself write what I’m thinking. I hate how people assume that if someone can speak and write with perfect grammar that they must be smart. Let’s say that you know nothing of the sun, you haven’t even seen it. If someone wrote “The sun is a black, square like object that rotates the Earth.” And another person said”Yo man the sun is yello, and its like a ball. And we go around it.” Who would you believe, and who is right? They’re probably not the same. I feel like it boils down to whom you’re talking, or writing to. Sometimes good grammar is the way to go, like in most papers. But sometimes the best way to get your point across it to be yourself and write the way you feel it should be said. And I figured I’d throw a little whom in there for the fun of it.
ReplyDeleteGenerally speaking my definition of grammar would just include everything that has to do with speaking/writing/typing the English language. Punctuation, spelling, word choice, sentence structure, etc. are all things that I would include in grammar. It's just the way you go about communicating your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI think the best way to learn grammar is by reading. Whether you are an avid reader or someone who never reads at all, each day as you read more things your grammar is bound to improve bit by bit. Obviously the people who read regularly will learn quicker and have a better grasp on language and grammar than non-readers, but I think as long as you are aware of what you are reading and you make even the slightest effort to improve upon your grammar, it will improve naturally as time goes on. I find myself learning new nit-picky grammar rules seemingly almost every day, although I guess my job at a newspaper would help attribute to that.
Reading isn't the only way to learn grammar, though. I'd say the most important things are the "building blocks" we learn when we were first beginning to be educated. I grew up with with two parents that worked as editors at newspapers, so understanding grammar was always of pretty high importance when I first began my schooling.
I think that having good grammar and always working on grammar is very important, and again that probably comes from my parents. On first impressions, having poor grammar can make you come off as very unintelligent, especially on the internet or on an essay where you have no other means of judgment outside of what's written on the paper and how it is written. I also pride myself in having what I believe to be a pretty wide vocabulary, and work to expand it as often as I can. Having a limited / poor vocabulary is another thing that I think can make a person come off as unintelligent, especially on a first impression.
I think grammar and general knowledge of the english language are really being disregarded too much in todays society. Ever since communication began languages have slowly changed and progressed as time goes on, so we're always going to see change in our language.
I'm all for some abbreviations online, but it seems like in todays day and age we are destroying our language by means of laziness rather than actually improving on our language like people have done before us.
Grammar to me is how well a paper is written using periods, commas, and things like that. Grammar is taught to everyone beginning in elementary school. Of course, it gets more intensive as students get older and go into high school and college. To me, grammar is like writing etiquette, it is necessary to understand many kinds of writing. If we didn’t have grammar then many sentences and words would be jumbled up together in a paragraph or story. I am usually very good with grammar. My friends always yell at me because I use it in my text messages, like with my “LOL’s” and such. I think that it spaces out words and is usually necessary for understanding many kinds of writing. Advantages of using proper grammar are getting used to using it for things like school papers and if you work where proper grammar is needed. It is never inappropriate to use grammar, it is a choice people will have to use it and it’s not like there is any time that you absolutely cannot use it.
ReplyDeleteGrammar to me means the way things are supposed to be written in correct grammatical form. I feel like you have to have every comma and period in the right place and not just thrown in there when we feel like putting one. The way the sentence is put together and if it flows and sounds right, just basically the structure of the sentence. When I first learned grammar it was in elementary school. My 5th grade teacher would write a sentence on the board and we would have to see if every word was spelled right or if it was grammatically correct.
ReplyDeleteI think as I got older and as time went on my high school teachers didn’t pay much attention to our grammar. As long as you turned the paper in on time you got the full credit. My English teacher my junior year was the only teacher that really cared about grammar. One day in class he had us write a paper and he was so disgusted with how they turned out, he gave us a lesson on how to use commas, periods, and other things. I was not a big fan of grammar so I didn’t pay that much attention to the lesson he was teaching us. I kind of just blew it off because I was not interested.
Grammar plays a big role when writing papers. If you just put commas in wherever you think they sounds good and turn it in or give it to a work person they will just look at you like your stupid because you have a comma or a period every other word. If you constantly misspell words professors aren’t even going to take a 2nd look at your paper. They will think that you just made it up or didn’t spend time on it and just put something together.
When talking to friends you forget about everything that you were taught. You use slang words and combine words and make up something that doesn’t make sense. You use works like, “wazzup ‘, “imma ‘ “gonna ‘ and so on. My mom is a teacher and even though she doesn’t teach English she is still a good person to help me with a paper. If I would talk to her with incorrect grammar she would correct me and ask me where I learned to speak. I think using correct grammar means the world of difference when trying to get a job. If you talk to the person who is interviewing you for a job like they are your best friend they will think you are not professional enough for the job and throw out your application. Sometimes you can talk like that if you are talking to a friend, but always remember when talking to a professor or a work person to go back to the correct grammar.
I would have to say that the use of less grammar is more common for our generation. We are used to using slang, cutting out certain letters in words for example, most "g"'s we tend to drop when typing to our friends in either text or internet conversations. We also tend to misspell a lot of words when online typing, not seeming to care about a spell check or even a self double check. My definition of grammar would be the correct way of writing, and the correct use of punctuation. I learned most of my grammar techniques through high school english and also a english 161 class that introduced MLA and the different forms of writing. I think grammar plays a very big part in writing. When grammar is used in the proper way you can be represented in a completely different way. To me writing papers for class versus writing online could portray you in two very different ways. I think some of the disadvantages to using proper grammar is time consuming, you often have to double check, watch your words, finish deadlines. While when writing for fun there are no rules and no grammar checks. But the advantage to proper grammar is the way you can be looked at when turning in a near perfect paper, and knowing that you are capable of doing so.
ReplyDeleteGrammar is something that you are taught at a young age. Not only is grammar used in writings but it is also used in every day talk. There are times to use proper grammar like in a court room, classroom, or any any place of importance.You have been taught grammar since you were in about 1st grade. You start on very low levels like learning to spell and pronounce words. But as you go through school the grammar gets harder like knowing when to put in commas, or using correct punctuation. Proper grammar plays a Major roll in writing process. You need to know how to have the correct punctuation throughout your paper when you write or a teacher wont even look at it. When you are writing a paper that is going to be graded, or even read by someone else, you need to write completely different than how you speak. For example in everyday talk you might say "we were laughing real hard". But you wouldn't want to write that in a paper it just doesn't sound proper. You would say "They were laughing extremely hard". Sometimes you just need to change how you speak from how you write. There are definitely advantages to using proper grammar. People just look at you differently, with more respect. especially older people. for some reason older people hate everything that kids in our society love today. There all about hard work and making an earnest living. They also think you should speak proper and not use slang.
ReplyDeletemy own opinion- yes grammar is important, but i think teachers concentrate too much on the grammar. They need to look past the grammar mistakes, and concentrate more on the meaning of the paper.
i learned grammar when i was in the eighth grade. my teacher, brother john michel, was very strict and made sure we knew our stuff. he would not even let us turn in a paper without using perfect grammar and if the grammar wasnt perect he would call you out in frnt ofthe entire class, which was extremely humiliating. this had a huge impact on my writing. nowadays i always watch my grammar even in text messages, facebook comments, instant messages. it irks me if i dont and what wrote just looks sloppy to me. to me grammar is an imporant prt of writing. without it ideas could be unclear and it would be difficult to comprehend the writing. sue there are times t is inappropriate to use improper grammar, say you didnt use proper grammar in an essay response to a test or maybe a short ansmer question in a job interview, the test would earn bad marks and the employer most likely would not be calling you back for a follow up.on the other hand you could use improper grammar as sort of a literary device. in high school i read huckleberry finn and in this book (at least im retty sure it was this book) the auther uses improper rammar to give the reader the feeling he are being told the story by an uneducated boy in the south. so all in all my opinion of grammar is that its important in writing and i prefer to use it in everything i write
ReplyDeleteMy definition of a perfect sentence is the proper placement of words to form a complete sentence. I think a lot of people lack the ability to do any of this anymore because of laziness. People just fly threw what ever they have to say assuming everyone knows what they're talking about. The other reasons are because of the amount of slang used by everyone these days. like all of the "LOL's". If you noticed the way people have conversations on the phone by texting, the way people talk to each other on facebook and other networks on the computer, if you notice everything is easy little words and they are all abbriveated. I think we do this so much that we just develop getting lazy and making this our second nature. most people do talk like this and every one understands each other so what im trying to say is grammer is slowing starting to lose its meaning to understand what people are talking about.
ReplyDeleteGrammer starts picking back up the older we get. thats when the lack of laziness stops and people pay more attention to things. i think maybe its just not a big deal anymore to very many people. every generation i think is different though pertaining more towards the words we use and the meaning to a sentence.