Blogs & Grammar

Two months ago Pati, one of the Slice of Life Regulars, left this comment on one of our posts:

As I have been working on this “Slice of Life Challenge,” while writing my Peace Everyday Blog, I have been thinking about all of you teachers and what I expect to be your excellence in grammar. As I read your posts, I am not looking at where you put your commas or semi colons, yet as I write my own posts, I am constantly questioning myself about my memory of what is correct grammar. It’s been a long time since I learned grammar and I am not very confident about the quality of my instructors. If any of you have any advice for me concerning my grammar, I would gladly accept any suggestions.

My daughter, Ali, is constantly encouraging the scrapbookers, and Life Artists, that she is teaching not to worry about the grammar and spelling of their journaling. “just start writing,” she tells her students, “your family is not going to care if you have misplaced commas or words that aren’t spelled correctly.” I empathize with those woman who question their ability to write with correct grammar. Writing or journaling would be easier, and probably quicker, if I wasn’t always questioning my grammar.

Does anyone else have this questioning mode?

From Slice of Life Challenge, 2008/03/12 at 10:41 AM

I e-mailed Pati and promised I’d get back to her with my thinking on this issue, but never actually posted anything about it… until now. (See what waking up at 4:15 a.m. can do for a person!??!)

I try, extremely hard, to make sure that my GUMS (i.e., grammar, usage, mechanics, and spelling) are correct when I post. Spelling is the easiest one to fix since I use Firefox and it points out all of my spelling errors as I type. However, the GUM part is a bit harder to fix/control.

In a perfect word, I’d write perfectly each and every time I posted. However, I’m not perfect, nor is this world. So, even though I’ll go back and edit my posts several times if I notice an error in grammar, usage, or mechanics, I realize that I do not catch everything… and I think that’s okay. Granted, some people might read this blog and notice that we don’t always use GUMS perfectly, but again, even though we call ourselves “Two Writing Teachers,” we’re not two PERFECT writing teachers. Hence, I agree with Pati’s daughter, Ali, who pushes people to just start writing. I think that getting down our thoughts is more important than getting down our thoughts perfectly.

I hope that helps you to understand my thinking a bit more on this topic Pati. My sincere apologies for taking two months to post a response to your important question!