Poor grammar may convey apathy, not knowing any better, a lack in education, or laziness. Or, certain technically incorrect but nevertheless systematically structured grammatical constructions could indicate background, culture, age-group, generation, etc. Consider Ebonics. Psychologist Robert Williams explains in Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks:
A two-year-old term created by a group of black scholars, Ebonics may be defined as "the linguistic and paralinguistic features which on a concentric continuum represent the communicative competence of the West African, Caribbean, and United States slave descendant of African origin. It includes the various idioms, patois, argots, idiolects, and social dialects of black people" especially those who have adapted to colonial circumstances. Ebonics derives its form from ebony (black) and phonics (sound, the study of sound) and refers to the study of the language of black people in all its cultural uniqueness.
Obnoxiously correct grammar, on the other hand, could insinuate a superiority complex (or its corollary, insecurity), language snobbiness (guilty!), or even the much more benign genuine effort to speak our language the way it should be spoken (as with students learning, valiantly, the complexities, inconsistencies, and vagaries that make up the rules of English).
In addition to these high level meta-meanings, grammatical constructions have the power to change the actual meaning of a sentence or phrase – for better or worse. I love the tightness of a deliberately structured sentence in which not a single word is frivolous. Each word executes its full potential to communicate: Denotation, connotation, and syntax are used in a manner that, rather than feeling constructed, is beautiful because of its effortlessness.
And I hate lazy sentences that are ambiguous by accident. When you said, "I saw your house going down the road" is this really what you meant?
In short – just like a wife is attuned to the tonal nuances uttered by her husband, whether or not he's cognizant that he's communicating more in non-words than words – grammar embodies one way in which the "text" itself affects our assimilation of it: How we say something is as important as what we're saying.
I agree; it can be snobbery, for sure, but it's difficult not to make immediate assumptions about someone who employs slloppy grammar. This is why I correct my kids' grammar, even though my son contrarily insists that he doesn't care to speak with good grammar and in fact relishes poor grammar. Ugh!
ReplyDeleteRegarding ambiguous meaning, my high school English teacher famously taught us the importance of pronoun reference by hurling a piece of chalk against the board and asking us what was wrong with the sentence, "when the chalk hits the board, it breaks." Point taken.
I love the chalk-hurling teacher!! We need more of those. =)
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