Why "Writing Right" Is Wrong

Posted by
Janice Hally
Nov 15, 2008

What happened to adverbs? Where did they go?

People "talk right", "do right", they even "write right", or they think they do. Me? I'll stick to "writing correctly" if that's all right with everyone.

Grammar is being taught less in British schools. More and more educational authorities lean towards the belief that grammar will somehow be absorbed during usage of the language. But what happens if all that people hear and absorb are errors?

I suppose that language is always evolving; but losing the sophistication of our language doesn't seem like progress to me.

It also seems an extraordinary idea to let the very foundation of our means of communication be passed on to children in such a haphazard way. Imagine if this principle were to be applied to other areas of education like civil engineering, architecture, or medicine.

“Yeah sure, man, I can design you a bridge, I’ve seen a lot of them. Been over a few, too. Yeah. Bridges. They go from one side of the ravine, or the river, to the other. You want a hump in the middle? A lot of them seem to go for the hump. It looks pretty cool. I can do you that - bridge - hump - no problem.”

Maybe we could ask the same guy to give us a hip transplant, after sitting in on a couple of operations, I'm sure he'd manage it - no problem.

Of course he might not get it right first time, but what’s wrong with trial and error?

Ridiculous? And yet, somehow, the English language finds itself in this situation. In Britain, students are no longer marked down for bad English in examination papers. As long as they can “make themselves understood” spelling and grammar are deemed not to be important.

There is one group in society to whom correct spelling and punctuation should remain important - writers. It seems that more and more people are expressing themselves, blogging, writing articles, trying to release that book that's trapped inside them.

Of course, rules of grammar need not be adhered to in the spoken dialogue of characters in a novel, or a screenplay; and an author’s own voice in a novel, does not require to be grammatically correct. Writers may wish to employ their own unique writing style which breaks all the rules, but it helps to learn the rules in the first place so that they can choose when and where to break them.

Bad spelling and glaring grammatical errors are guaranteed to put off any reader or editor.

Like a mathematical formula, English grammar is based on simple logic. There’s nothing difficult or mystical about it. I’m writing a series of articles with tips on how to avoid the worst errors. I hope they’ll show how easy it is to get it right...