Dealing with grammar

aaronhattle · Post by **aaronhattle** » 18 Oct 2013, 15:29

One easy thing you can do to improve your grammar is to just read more. You'll start to naturally understand the rules after a while.

Smitha Nayak · Post by **Smitha Nayak** » 22 Oct 2013, 01:56

Your 3-year-old races over to you to announce, "I runned around the playground!" When you ask about his new teacher, he says, "She has big foots." Is it a problem if many of your child's sentences still contain grammatical mistakes?

Not at all, says Diane Morton, director of the School for Young Children at Saint Joseph College in West Hartford, CT. In fact, these kinds of grammar goofs can be a good sign. "They show that your preschooler has picked up on word rules, like adding an 's' to pluralize a word and adding 'ed' to make a word past tense," says Morton. But your kid doesn't know all the exceptions to those rules yet. So since he has hands, arms, and legs, he may think he has "foots," not feet.

-- 29 Oct 2013, 03:45 --

It’s not wrong to split infinitives.
It’s not wrong to end a sentence with a preposition.
It’s not wrong to use “that” to refer to a person (e.g., the man that bought my car).
It’s not wrong to treat “data” as singular.

The trouble is that a lot of people believe all those things (and more) are wrong. I hear from them every time I give a radio interview, and it’s a problem I face every day when I give people advice. Do I tell them the real rule (“data” can be singular or plural) when it could get them in trouble with their boss or teacher who may be misinformed? People come to me for advice because they don’t want to get in trouble; they don’t want to be perceived as being wrong. I want to give them the answers they need, but I also don’t want to support or reinforce grammar myths.

riyanj · Post by **riyanj** » 07 Nov 2013, 22:18

I agree with many here, I think you write very well in English. And the editing process fleshes it all out or causes an argument between two people who disagree on the rules. Even those of us who have studied grammar our entire lives can't always agree on the sometimes strange and conflicting rules.

SharisseEM · Post by **SharisseEM** » 29 Oct 2014, 02:07

I've been reading up on grammar and punctuation books because I know that I'm pretty weak in it. That being said, I write first and then revise and revise. It also helps to have another set of eyes and you know that that person is stronger at grammar than you are. When they tell you, you learn. I'm still learning all the time.