This week: We’re asking, why study grammar? It's a more interesting answer than you think, I promise. We’ve got the usual footnotes and then a little bit of pondering to get us out. Let’s dive in.
When last we left it, we were trying to find a definition for grammar. After thinking about it for a week, here's my definition: grammar is a set of parameters that let us place words in context with each other so that we can better understand the inherent communicative intent. Eh, it's a work in progress. But, while thinking about it, I started wondering what the bigger picture is - why should we study grammar in the first place?
One of my go-to grammar books is "An Introduction to English Grammar" by Gerald Nelson and Sidney Greenbaum. It is a practical book, one that gives a list of best practices and tries to inform by example rather than tedious definition (1). In the introduction, the authors provide a brief list of eminently practical reasons to study grammar:
it can help you learn other languages
it can help you write better
it can help you read better
But the real reason, the key reason, is buried a few paragraphs ahead of that. They say, "If you understand the nature of language, you will realize the grounds for your linguistic prejudices and perhaps moderate them." And this is a fundamentally important point: studying grammar makes us think about the words we use and how we use them. In doing so, it forces us to examine our assumptions about what is correct and what is incorrect. (2)
Here's a different take: In Michael Swan's "Practical English Usage", the author takes great pains to point out that his book is descriptive and aimed at providing students with real-world examples of English as it is spoke (3). So why study grammar? Because English is ever-evolving and understanding how and when it changes is key to using English to communicate. This builds on Nelson and Greenbaum's point: by communicating in a way our audience is primed to receive we are better able to eliminate inherent prejudices from social interactions.
One last take: “The Cambridge Grammar of English” (by Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy) adds a couple layers of complexity to the standard prescriptive vs. descriptive debate by stating that some grammar is deterministic and other grammar is probabilistic, by which they mean that some grammar is used 99.9% of the time. Their example is the order of the words the cup. We would all need a second to process it if someone referred to their drinking vessel as cup the. Probabilistic is that grammar that confuses everyone and is ever changing. It is what is most likely to be used by a certain group of speakers in a certain time and a certain place. (4) And again, by studying and understanding that probabilistic grammar, we can eliminate our biases from our communicative patterns and focus more on the intent of the speaker rather than their linguistic framing.
But perhaps more important than that is Carter and McCarthy's expanded definition of probalistic. Probabilistic grammar is grammar as a choice. By studying grammar I have more communicative choices open to me. I can switch between registers and I can move between formal and more casual social situations without losing track of my ability to communicate. And that, in turn, allows me examine my prejudices, fears, and assumptions about the people around me. Thus, grammar reflects the unconscious choices we make in communicating. By examining and studying grammar we can better understand the choices we are making and open up the door to allow new choices to be made.
Footnotes
1. I know, I should learn from their example.
2. This is too big an issue for this newsletter but this is why many BIPOC English speakers are forced to code-switch - they are facing our inherent assumptions about people who use a given speech pattern.
3. If that triggered you, you may need to study some grammar.
4. For example, I'm reading an older translation of Don Quixote at the moment. Part of the fun for me is a list of words I know but have not seen used quite that way before. The grammar is from a different time and circumstance and it is, well, different.
Ponderous
Recently I binge-watched the entirely of Apple+'s For All Mankind. For those not familiar with it, it's an alternate history of the recent past. The show begins with Russian cosmonauts making it to the moon before Neil Armstrong and builds from there. It's a fascinating look at a world that could have been and one that, well, as binge-watched implied, I couldn't get enough of. In fact, I have been unable to stop thinking about it since.
One scene in particular sent me on a research rabbithole that I thought I'd share here. With no spoilers, suffice it to say that some of the Russian cosmonauts bristle at being called astronauts and insist that American officials and astronauts alike use cosmonaut. Now, in the show, they are still far enough back in the past that nobody else has created a space program. This did not stop me wondering what other countries call their 'star sailors.' It is a fairly short list.
Encyclopedia Britannica declares that astronauts are space fliers from the U.S., Europe, Canada, and Japan, while Cosmonaut refers to Russian fliers. Taikonaut is reserved for Chinese fliers. However, this is not the end of the list. According to a 2002 news article, India has designated its sailors as "vyomanauts." (I suppose it's worth noting that both Virgin Galactic and Space X also use the word astronaut.)
So that's that. And yet, as of 2019, some 72 countries have some form of space program, so that list may yet grow. Any suggestions?
Stay curious,
J