It’s National Grammar Day!

One day a year, March 4, we celebrate good grammar in all its glory.

We celebrate it for the beauty and balance of its structure, however convoluted it may sometimes appear; for all the bits of all the languages, ancient and modern, that have contributed to English; and, most of all, for the clarity it brings to writing.

grammar day badge

We celebrate good grammar not to scold or harangue the use of bad grammar, but rather to encourage the construction of solid, artful sentences, so perfectly punctuated that readers float unimpeded through the prose, free from meaningless or meaning-clouding buzzwords.

Good grammar means that readers focus on what you have to say, rather than stumbling along in search of a subject and verb, losing sight of what you’re trying to communicate. And once you know the rules of grammar, you know exactly when it’s OK to break them. That’s right: Sometimes it is OK to break them.

So celebrate by sharing Grammar Monkeys with your friends, and help spread the word that good grammar puts you in good company.

Here are a few fun and useful links:

The National Grammar Day home page, including a poem, a song and a free e-card.

100 fun and informative blog posts for grammar geeks

Diagramming sentences (yes, this can be fun)

Cheers!

  • http://grammatically.blogspot.com Martha Brockenbrough

    Thanks for this post, Lisa!

  • http://www.markallenediting.com Mark Allen

    What a great explanation of why we do what we do. Thanks for this.

  • http://editdesk.wordpress.com/ Andy Bechtel

    Well said. Grammar should be used as a tool, not a weapon.

  • http://stancarey.wordpress.com/ Stan Carey

    Good points, eloquently made.

    It’s also World Book Day, by the way.

  • http://cantueso1.blogspot.com/ cantueso

    I am not a native speaker and wanted to ask you what you would say to “Just because……doesn’t mean…….” which has been coming up more and more frequently all over the internet.

    And I think it is contagious; I made fun of it, but now I often feel the need to start out “just because…” and it is hard to find a way out.

    “Just because it is nonsense does not mean I will avoid it”.
    “Just because I don’t like it does not mean it is wrong”.

    I also find it hard to say exactly what is wrong about it, except that it relies heavily on “just”. If you leave out “just”, the lure no longer works.

  • Lisa McLendon

    Hm, I use this all the time but you got me thinking. Is it wrong, and if so, why? It’s a common construction and doesn’t sound wrong to these native-speaker ears. But just because I’m a native speaker doesn’t mean everything that sounds right _is_ right. So I did a little research, and there’s nothing grammatically wrong with the construction — the “it” before the “doesn’t mean” is understood (although sometimes it’s not dropped), much like “you” is understood in imperatives, etc. So use it all you like, and don’t worry about trying to back out of it.

  • http://cantueso1.blogspot.com/ cantueso

    Thank you for sending your answer to my mail. I tried but could not find my way back here.

    I did not mean that the grammar was off, but that it was sorely illogical, probably created in an attempt to avoid the heavy-footed “the fact that”.

    “Because” is similar in meaning to “since” and “as”; for instance: “Because it is raining, I can’t go out. Since it is raining, I can’t go out. As it is raining, I cannot go out.” All of these make sense.
    So try to substitute that “just because” trap and you get:

    “Since it is nonsense does not mean I will avoid it.”
    “As it is nonsense does not mean I will avoid it.”
    See?
    It is confusing.

  • Lisa McLendon

    The thing is, “since” and “as” are similar to – but not the same as – “because,” and because “because” has a more focused function, it can take an adverb, whereas “since” and “as” cannot. (Plus, “as” is discouraged as a causal because it’s often unclear.) “Just because” does not mean the same thing as plain “because” without the adverb, so trying to substitute “since” or “as” in this construction will just make your head hurt. :)

    Just because you can’t interchange “because” and “since” and “as” in this construction does not mean it’s illogical. It’s clear and grammatically unobjectionable. But you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to. Plus, anything that can get “the fact that” out of sentence is probably progress.