2026, books, education, History, Movies, Mysteries

Rebel with a Clause

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A couple of weeks back, a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to go see the world-premiere of Rebel with a Clause at the Main Cinema downtown.  I’d never heard of this but my friend is a writer, super funny and super curious and super intelligent so without so much as even “bing-ing” it, I bought ticket online and that Sunday, off we went. 

Explaining it doesn’t even begin to do it justice, so here is the trailer:

It was SO funny, mostly because the idea of her quest is funny and a lot of the folks in the clips were hilarious but also because the audience was also hysterical.  The movie is split up into chapters.  For example, The Comma was a bunch of clips about comma questions.  In fact, when “Commas” came up on the screen, there was a huge reaction/laugh/groan from the audience.  Clearly grammar and usage hit a spot for many people and the audience obviously knew what those hot spots are!  This happened several times.

I have never been what you would call a stickler for grammar but for most of my adult life I’ve lamented about the sad state of English.  Even having studied Shakespeare and Chaucer and knowing that English has evolved, I stood my ground.  And then I had one of those life-changing reads.  The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way by Bill Bryson (what a great title too).  He was so effective in mapping out the path of our language that by the final page, I was completely converted.  The grammar that we were taught in school really is just arbitrary made-up rules and communicating is what’s important, not whether we’re splitting infinitives or not.  (And I’m really hawking his book – interesting and funny.)

This doesn’t mean that I have thrown grammar to the wind.  I still like to speak well and I certainly appreciate it when someone uses the subjunctive correctly.  I also still cringe when people mis-use reflexive pronouns, which seems to be more often than not these days.  But overall, I’m trying to let all that go.

Ellen Jovin clearly comes down on the side of not holding people’s feet to the fire over their use of grammar even though she really knows her topic.  (This is not a spoiler alert by the way.)  Turns out that in addition to setting up her Grammar Table, eventually, in all 50 states, she also wrote a book about the experience.  I have it on hold at the library. 

So…. (VS acknowledges she is using the ellipses incorrectly) I’m highly recommending both Mother Tongue and Rebel with a Clause.  And, if you’re here in the Twin Cities, the movie will be showing again at The Main Cinema on September 21 and September 24.  Highly recommended!!

Do you remember learning grammar in school?  Any grammar rule/s that you feel warmly about? 

22 thoughts on “Rebel with a Clause”

  2. Alas, I am afraid that I have always “gotten by” doing advanced grammar by ear, using the Duke Ellington “if it sounds good, it IS good” method.

    I fear things like “the subjective” and “conditional clauses” just fly past me and I don’t give them a second thought.

    Apologies to those of who for whom this stuff matters mightily.

    I just can’t.

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  3. Like Madislandgirl, my employment of grammar is largely determined by ear and my recollection or retention of the formal labels for tenses, etc. is weak. Curiously, I still have a grammar book from eighth grade and feel an inexplicable attachment to it, though I never consult it. Much of the instruction it contains is presented in the form of sentence diagramming.

    For many years as a freelancer one of my services was as a copywriter, primarily in business-to-business contexts. As such, I had to be careful about my sentence construction but I generally am anyway. More importantly, as the content of what I was writing changed with the industry I sought to address, I needed to pay close attention to voice and to the vocabulary I chose so as to place myself within that particular audience’s mindset. It was an interesting challenge as my assignments moved from industrial to medical to agricultural.

    Writing to a more casual audience and in a conversational tone I am aware that I overuse commas and it’s a tendency I have to guard against.

    If I were asked to name a grammatical (or is it punctuational) error that irritates me, I would point to the widespread misuse of apostrophes.

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  5. I understand English to be a steadily evolving language. It’s one that has changed over hundreds of years and continues to change. I accept that I can’t stand in the way of that evolution. Who knows what it will sound like or look like in the future?

    I’ve never used English perfectly, although I’ve had some excellent teachers. I’ve always been confused about verbs, such as “lay” and “lie”. I don’t know whether I use reflexive pronouns correctly or not. I’ve been trying to let it all go too, since nobody really seems to care that much.

    Some word usage does bother me. It seems to me (and I’ve mentioned this before) that the word “gifting” has replaced “giving” in almost all situations. People would prefer to “gift” something to someone, rather than give it. I’m not sure that’s appropriate usage in all cases. The word “gifting” has become like nails on a chalkboard to me. It drives me nuts. Not everything is gifted. It’s still okay to just give someone something.

    Northfield has a Buy Nothing Facebook page. When you have something to offer, the first word in your post is supposed to be “Give.” You would be amazed how many forms this takes. People really don’t seem to understand verbs at all.

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    1. Ellen does a great job in the movie and I assume also in the book, about lay and lie. Although it does make me think that I need to carry a little piece of paper around in my wallet with the table of the usage.

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  6. After I had written a few papers my first semester of graduate school a couple of my professors asked if I had a lot of German speaking relatives (I did) since I wrote at times like a German writing in English. I believe I was splitting my infinitives.

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  7. Sounds like I should get this book, VS!

    I do remember some grammar teaching from grade school teachers… I loved diagramming – making order out of chaos! – and was impressed that our language could be organized in that way. The one that drives me nuts is misplaced modifiers, and I find that even those I consider wonderful authors occasionally do this. Who is editing??

    I know I use way too many elipses…

    Busy day, more later… : )

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  8. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Like, what drives me crazy about this version of , like English, is like, like. Like, I cannot stand it.

    Really and truly people do not need this filler/modifier. I have even heard news people using this. Unfortunately, I catch MYSELF doing that. Good Grief.

    I did learn grammar in grade 10 English. However, our teacher who knew grammar well, had an unusual verbal tick that became The Thing that Ate Grammar. He constantly would lapse into the Ah-Duhs. Tenth graders being tenth graders obsessed about this, so as a result we spent our time ignoring grammar and counting Ah-Duhs. There were 2 categories: 1. The total number of Ah-Duhs in a class and 2. The long string of Ah-duhs. Although I do not remember the numbers anymore, they would run into hundreds in a class session. I remember the Ah-Duhs, I do not remember an adequate amount of grammar at times.

    Long after he was gone and had died, we learned he was a closeted gay man who surely had a difficult life in NW Iowa.

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  9. I certainly don’t remember or follow all the rules of grammar. Like MIG, if it sounds good then it is good enough. There are some usages that bug me to no end. One of them is the misuse of lend and borrow. Too any times I hear things like “borrow me that book” instead of “lend me that book” or “may I borrow that book”. Another pet peeve is people on FB who wish somebody a happy belated birthday instead of a belated happy birthday. It’s not the birthday that’s belated!

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