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The Grumpy Grammarian

With grammar and usage, as with many other matters, it is often necessary to set priorities.  Although I have a reputation as a nitpicking nuisance, I am often distressed, annoyed, or amused (depending on my mood) by people who get hung up, for what seems to be forever, on inconsequential trivialities.

Of course, what one person considers to be a sacrosanct rule may be a matter of little or no consequence to someone else.  However, I do think that it is possible to have a hierarchy within the rules of usage and grammar, ranging from absolutely essential to relatively insignificant – and everything in between.  In a way, we already apply such discrimination when we differentiate between what is acceptable in formal settings and what is acceptable in informal or colloquial settings.

An example that immediately comes to mind is the interminable debate about "It's I" versus "It's me."  Under the formal rules of grammar, which require the nominative case for a pronoun in the predicate nominative position, "It's I" is correct, and rigid grammarians will defend it as the only correct option, sometimes with the kind of intractable persistence that is usually reserved for matters of life and death.  On the other hand, most speakers of English go about saying "It's me" every day, without giving it a second thought.  Isn't it about time that the grammatical gradgrinds relegated the debate to the trivia corner, acknowledged that "It's me" is an acceptable idiom (and an exception to the pronoun rule), and reserved "It's I" only for the most formal settings where the utmost decorum is required (such as an interview for a position in a university's English department)?

In contrast, when someone writes "Its me" (or "Its I"), we have good reason to pounce, no matter how often people confuse its and it's.  This is a serious error.  It confuses two forms that have entirely different meanings, shows ignorance of the difference between contractions and possessive pronouns, and may (at least temporarily) mislead the reader about the intended meaning of what has been written.

Consider, too, a vast area of rules and conventions – punctuation.  We have an array of practices, ranging from absolutely essential rules to those that are optional, stylistic, or cosmetic.  If we omit essential markers, we make our prose difficult to understand; occasionally, we may even misrepresent the intended meaning.  If we insert unnecessary markers or use the wrong ones, we may produce the same results.  On the other hand, some punctuation marks (especially certain commas) are discretionary or stylistic.  For instance, we may enclose a word or phrase in commas if we wish to emphasize it and omit the commas if we don't.  There is no point in engaging in a long debate about whether these commas "belong," and seeking an ironclad rule that covers all such constructions is futile.  We can safely declare that a comma must go at the end of an introductory dependent clause because it is a signal to the reader that we're finished with the subordinate idea and are beginning the main idea.  However, the comma at the end of a short, introductory phrase is discretionary; it may be necessary for readability and sense, or it may not.

Obsessing about trivialities regarding grammar and usage is bad for at least two reasons.  In the first place, concentration on trifles can divert attention from what really matters.  Students sometimes focus on arcane comma conventions when they haven't yet learned how to keep sentences from running together.  Let's learn where the stops belong before we worry about the pauses.  Or they memorize the spellings of unusual or difficult words without learning the difference between their and there.

Secondly, an obsession with trivialities shows a distorted view of the purpose of grammatical conventions.  They are not arbitrary and do not exist for their own sake.  We have rules for grammar and usage for the same reason that we have agreed-upon definitions of words:  to express ideas so that we can be better understood.  Just as we do not say "large" when we mean "small," we should not use "then" when we mean "than," or a comma where sense requires a period.  When grammar has an impact on sense and understanding, it is as important as using the right words.  When it has little such impact, it is relatively unimportant, just as the difference between "large" and "big" is unimportant, except perhaps in nuance.  We will be understood no matter which we select.

Obsession with grammatical trivialities has its most baneful influence in those classrooms where teachers construct a series of prohibitions that do nothing but convince students that the rules of grammar have nothing to do with reality.  These teachers invent "nonrules" such as, "Do not begin a sentence with Because," thus making students believe that "proper" grammar and usage is the domain of some snobbish clique, one that they would rather not join. Nitpicking minor points has the same effect – and also makes people believe that correct grammar has so many fine points that they can never master it.

Such an obsession with trivial details is especially harmful when more and more people believe that correct grammar and usage don't matter – even though the rules do matter tremendously.  People who try to make a fuss about minor points feed the idea, voiced by many, that "as long as I'm understood, it doesn't matter how I say or write it."

Too many English teachers, I fear, don't bother to explain the relationship between proper grammar and sense, clarity, or logic.  They teach rules (and some "nonrules") as a kind of sacred text, divorced from real-life application, without noting which ones are core components of the way our language works and which are discriminatory and variable.  When we put minor infractions of grammar and usage (e.g., those that are acceptable colloquially but not formally) in the same ballpark as more serious infractions (e.g., those that interfere with clarity), it's no wonder that people choose to disregard all conventions of correctness.

I am not for a moment suggesting that we should abandon these conventions altogether, any more than I am suggesting that everyone should cultivate whatever bad manners he or she chooses to have.  As with manners, we should all know and observe the basic conventions that apply everywhere.  It is also useful to know what the formal conventions are when the situation requires us to apply them.  However, obsessing about trivialities is a bit like worrying about how to use finger bowls at a picnic or barbecue.