WHEN all is said and done, even in these liberal days, grammar matters greatly – but don’t take my word for it. Heed, instead, the 19th century American writer Edgar Allan Poe, best known for his tales of mystery. “A man’s grammar,” he said, “like Caesar’s wife, should not only be pure, but above suspicion.”
This aphorism has surely been taken to heart by our readers, whose grammatical prowess is evidently of the pristine quality of driven snow. The matter – along with the misuse of the English language – has featured prominently on the Letters Pages over the past three weeks.
R Russell Smith of Kilbirnie lamented the demise of the personal pronoun “who”, William Sharp of Glasgow was annoyed by the shortening of words to single syllables, such as “stats” for “statistics”, while Andrew Highton’s bugbear concerned the letter “r”, with the common pronunciation down south of the word “drawing” as “drawring”.
This last moved Kate Gordon of Renfrewshire to verse: “The English have a love affair with the letter R,/They join it to the letter A in words like Africar./It’s added to a W in the middle of some words,/To hear them talk of drawring is really quite absurd …”
Of course, one feels rather insecure when highlighting poor grammar. I have no doubt that some will be going through this piece with a fine toothcomb, and I confidently await the emails which will set me right. In anticipation of those, let me quote none other Winston Churchill: “Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.” So there. The language will continue to tie us in knots for a long time to come.
But the discussion of English as she is spoke and writ has not been to the exclusion of other topics on the Letters Pages. We have also been talking about issues as diverse as grouse shooting, mixed-sex civil partnerships, nuclear power, quantitative easing, the honours system, wind farms, fracking, and the preponderance of sport.
As has been the case for the past two months now, however, two subjects have dominated: the consequences of the Brexit vote and the prospect of a second independence referendum. Political debate often involves more heat than light, but I enjoyed the cut and thrust of a recent exchange. MSP Christine Grahame wrote: “I refer to the litany of the SNP Government’s failings by Keith Howell. Unfortunately it was incomplete. The weather this summer has been pretty rotten.” Back came Alan Hambley of High Blantyre with: “Christine Grahame has her tongue firmly in her cheek … as all SNP MSPs are aware, the blame for any failings of the Scottish weather system lies firmly with the Westminster Government.” It was a fine example of the sparring that makes this forum so enjoyable.
To close, I refer back to my last column, where I asked if it would be possible to pen a letter shorter than the three-word offering “AM for PM” which followed Andy Murray’s Wimbledon win. The best response came from John Milligan of Kilmarnock, who wrote: “No.”
Touché.
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