WHAT is grammar, and what is it for? The full technical definition, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is “the whole system and structure of a language or of languages in general, usually taken as consisting of syntax and morphology (including inflections) and sometimes also phonology and semantics”.
Quite. I actually prefer definition 1.3: “A set of actual or presumed prescriptive notions about correct use of a language” (1.2, for the record, is “ A book on grammar”). So now we know what it is. But what is its purpose? Put simply, it provides the rules for common use of language so that we can more easily understand each other.
Is there are an argument to be made that sometimes we can get hung up on the rules and neglect the aforementioned purpose?
Take, for example, semantics, and this complaint from reader David Brown, published on Tuesday: “I’m getting increasingly annoyed with use of the phrase ‘times less’. In today’s edition about vaccinators pay you describe nurses as getting four times less. You can either have four times more or a quarter of, but four times less does not make sense.”
It is true, of course, that using the fraction would have been more correct, but the phrase “four times less” is perfectly comprehensible; the reader surely understands what the writer is conveying. It may not be pretty, but it works, as I used to say about my Vauxhall Viva. We get the meaning, but we lose the elegance, which is a pity, because at The Herald fine writing needs to be our goal.
Popular usage, of course, is often not the same as proper grammar, and our readers are sticklers for the latter whether it impedes comprehension or not. Here’s Eric Begbie: “Having squirmed when I read Nicola Love’s column [Wednesday] and her statement that a quick call had secured ‘my partner and I’ vaccination appointments, I concluded that the blame must lie squarely at the door of Oscar Hammerstein II for failing to correctly name his musical 'The King and Me'".
We knew what our writer was saying, but the syntax jarred.
When it comes to comprehension, grammar is important ... but punctuation has a huge role to play, too. On Wednesday, reader David Miller gave us Kingsley Amis’s demonstration of the usefulness of the apostrophe: “Those things over there are my husband’s; Those things over there are my husbands’, and Those things over there are my husbands.” Yesterday, Russell Smith emphasised the difference a judiciously placed comma can make with “What is this thing called Love?”, and “What is this thing called, Love?”.
Most journalists, particularly sub-editors, are careful with punctuation; it is not that difficult (although there are perhaps discussions to be had on the use of the colon and the semi-colon). Bad grammar, though, can sneak up on us and trip us up unawares. We ought to guard against it becoming a subjective choice.
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