S2 E115: Grumpy Grammar Grapefruit

You make many valid points. Everyone makes grammatical mistakes, both in writing or speaking. Non-native writers tend to make different mistakes than the native ones. As you rightly point out, some mistakes are due to our carelessness and not in any way to a lack of knowledge. After we have read our manuscripts gazzillion times, we can no longer even detect some errors, even the glaring ones. Hard for me to imagine an editor rejecting a piece of good writing because of a couple of mistakes that can easily be corrected. Patterned and frequent mistakes showing an obvious lack of grammar mastery are a different thing. They just indicate a writer still needs to work on developing his/her grammar knowledge and application of linguistic rules. As someone said, to break the rules, you first need to know them well, or something along those lines. Because English is my second language, and because I am academically and explicitly trained in English language and literature, I tend to notice problems not only with grammar and syntax but also with the composition of a story. However, I would never reject a good story because of a few grammar or punctuation mistakes. Also, we all have to keep in mind that languages are living creatures and that both grammar and punctuation rules have changed. "They" is now a recognized singular pronoun. Thanks for this show, Mark. Jana Begovic

Tuesday Mar 03, 2020

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