As if I needed yet another reason
to believe that the Internet is mostly a dangerous, destructive, terrible thing,
recent perusing of the self-indulgent and slightly maudlin Thought Catalog has
alerted me to the awful truth: literally Anyone and Everyone is now a bona fide
writer, thanks to the Internet.
You no longer need to possess any
particular command of the language in order to see your name in a byline.
Interesting and novel ideas are not a prerequisite for unleashing your words on
the populace. Generic, pointless rubbish is not only accepted by the likes of
Thought Catalog, it appears to be the preference. And, possibly most offensive
and repugnant of all, good grammar is not
required.
What does the Internet have against
commas? Why on Earth does no one seem to regard the distinction between “your”
and “you’re” as being worthy of consideration? Can I truly be the only person in existence who grinds her teeth in ill-concealed
fury when writers fail to use “who” and “whom” correctly? Has simple, honest
proofreading gone the way of the VHS and become extinct?
Even worse than the affronts to
grammar and syntax is the vitriol that we unfortunate proponents of the English
language encounter when pointing out said affronts—from being labeled as
“Grammar Nazis” to being outright ridiculed for daring to draw attention to
what some consider to be “trivial”. With regard to the former, calling anyone a
“Nazi” (in the year 2014, no less) for being mindful of grammatical errors is
distasteful, lazy, and indicative of a philistine understanding of history.
With regard to the latter, it’s easy enough to fall back on the notion that the
content supersedes form in terms of the relative impact of a written piece, but
this attitude is woefully ignorant of the fundamentals of literature itself.
One cannot hope to communicate one’s ideas, however brilliant and revolutionary
they may be, if the basic structure in which they are presented is weakened by
faulty machinery. And grammar is, indeed, the machinery that powers all
writing. Why, then, do Internet users vociferously dismiss its importance, even
to the point of chastising those who draw attention to flaws in the machinery?
I’d love to know why we seem to accept grammatical errors
so easily. Is this a product of the millennial generation, the inherent belief
that their words are the super special words of super special snowflakes who
simply must express themselves
immediately lest all their Facebook friends and Twitter followers are left to
wonder in agony what infinite wisdom awaits? Is the urge to say something—anything—so powerful that we simply
accept that whatever is said is going to be at least a little bit sloppy and
flawed, as millennials have all but cornered the market on being sloppy and
flawed? Is our generation so uncomfortable with silence that we will connect, must connect, using the Internet’s
version of the written word in order to ensure that we can never fade into anonymity?
Writing is not easy. It’s not supposed to be easy. Sort of like
transplant surgery, if writing were easy, then everyone would do it, and they
would do it well. In those days of yore when the distinction of having one’s
writing published was reserved for those with actual talent, authors were
praised for their skillful prose, their exciting notions, their memorable
characters, their startling use of symbolism, their sensitive tackling of
difficult issues. They were not praised
for their grammar—because correct grammar
was a given. Transplant surgeons are never praised for tying a knot
correctly, because knot tying is a fundamental skill in surgery that everyone
who calls himself a surgeon is expected to be able to do. Good quality writing is
indeed about far more than good grammar. But bad grammar negates good writing.
So this is my wish for all of us
who aspire to call ourselves writers: take grammar seriously. We cannot expect
to command the written word in any meaningful way if we fail to grasp the
underlying machinery, those fussy little semi-colons and prepositions and verb
tenses that are so easy to dismiss in our eagerness to indulge ourselves and
stroke our egos by publishing our own special, precious little words with the
click of a blogging button. The Internet can just as easily transform us into
mindless, hash-tagging, self-impressed automatons who artlessly express
ourselves in 140 nearly incoherent characters as it can educate, inspire, and
motivate us to share our thoughts and ideas with the global community. I can
only hope that social media, blogs, and the Thought Catalogs of the world don’t
succeed in their endeavor to slowly wear down the machinery of good writing and
render grammar obsolete. Call me old-fashioned, but I’m a believer in syntax
over hash-tags.
