Column Eight

The Importance of Grammar


While brainstorming for the topic of this issue’s column, I had an epiphany. It suddenly seemed foolish for me to have written so many columns about the observation of proper grammar without having defined and outlined why that observation is important. In this column, I hope to rectify the situation.


Grammar is the structure of language. Without grammar, learning how to speak and write English would be a nightmare. There would be no organization. It would be like trying to find an uncollected chess set in a toy closet with no shelves. As a second illustration, consider playing a game of baseball with no rules. The batter could hit the ball, tag first base, skip second and third and go instead directly to home. The batter would argue that he was “allowed” more than three strikes. The pitcher would argue that four balls do not constitute a walk. In reality, the game would be impossible to play without rules. In the same way, language is impossible without the rules of grammar.


It would be difficult to understand the importance of grammar without mentioning the value of language. Language is the vehicle by which we communicate our thoughts to others. I find the biblical account of the end of the Tower of Babel an interesting illustration. While they spoke the same language, the people were able to communicate their ideas effectively. A project manager could easily communicate his desire that more bricks be made. Without the use of some type of language, the manager would be unable to make the workers understand what he wanted. Without the use of language, the engineers of the tower could not coordinate their efforts, and the work of the builders very well might result in a misshapen, unsafe, unsteady monster of brick and mortar ready to collapse at any moment. It was only because they shared a language that their building efforts were successful. This fact is evidenced by the result of God’s confusion of their language. When one man spoke to another in English, and the other responded in Chinese (languages chosen for the sake of argument), the communication of ideas was blocked by the language barrier. It is impossible for one person to effectively communicate ideas to another unless both persons understand the same language.


Imagine a grammar-less language: there would be no punctuation to mark the end of this sentence there would be no capital letters to indicate the beginning of this sentence there be would organization no sentence to this and adverbs and adjectives would be used interchangeable


It is because of this that we study grammar. Consider the goals that we as young aspiring authors share. We want to effectively communicate our ideas to other people via the written word. If we really want to achieve such a goal, it is vital that we first understand the rules of grammar that form the basis of that communication.


The Grammarian