When I was in junior high I never did really figure out how to diagram a sentence. In my mind’s eye I can still see the examples that the teacher had written up on the board but I’m pretty sure if it were ever on a test, I probably missed that question. I think my grasp of the English language is sufficient without that bit of knowledge. Although I couldn’t point out a dangling participle to safe my life, I do recognize the subjunctive. In fact, I remember how excited I was that the first paragraph of Uprooted by Naomi Novik not only mentioned dragons but also used the subjunctive correctly. Twice!
Correcting someone else’s English use isn’t a habit of mine; since I can’t claim perfect usage, I stop short of deciding if anyone else does. In fact, I’m re-thinking the idea that anyone has perfect usage. Bill Bryson’s Mother Tongue (which I just finished) has pretty well convinced me that most of the “rules’ that we think know were just made up (fairly willy-nilly) by folks whose only qualification was their strong opinion!
Imagine my surprise when I found that someone else obviously had a strong opinion about grammar. I turned the page on a book yesterday to find the above edit. In red pen in a library book no less. I can’t imagine that anyone would care enough to do this. It’s clear what the author meant – I’m sure every single person reading this book knew exactly what she was saying. Makes me think of a t-shirt I’ve seen online recently that made me laugh:
I doubt seriously if this “correction” will give other readers an “ah ha” moment. No one will look at those red letters and say “Oh, I’ve been using that and because wrong all these years”. So I’ve decided that I don’t care if the way the sentence is written is wrong by anybody’s standards. I DO think it’s a heinous crime to write in a library book in red ink. `Nuff said.
Do you write in your own books? Margins or editing?
Trail Baboon 