For the Love of Language

After poring over letters upon letters from esteemed graduate students who have been awarded prestigious fellowships, I cannot believe the improper grammar and punctuation and all-around bad letter writing that comes from their pens.

Or should I write, "After pouring over letters upon letters from esteemed graduate students that have been awarded prestigious fellowships, I cannot believe the improper grammer and puncuation and all-around bad letter righting that comes from there pens."

I can't believe I let that into print, but I have to let it serve as an example. Writing and grammar is everything. It's presentation. It's communication. It's organization.

It's crucial to getting by in the world, whether one wants to believe it or not.

Take, for example, the line, "Eats, shoots and leaves."

In that structure with the comma placement, how would you identify "shoots and leaves?"

What part of speech does each represent?

Now, what about this structure, "Eats shoots and leaves."

What part of speech does each represent now?

It is the power of a comma, the placement of a tiny mark of punctuation that changes the meaning oh-so-much. It is the title of a great book, "Eats Shoots & Leaves" by British author Lynne Truss, which I highly recommend.

http://eatsshootsandleaves.com/

I fear we're getting lazy with our command of the English language. I see it in the e-mails from my younger friends and relatives. I was reminded of it this week several times when I was editing material for the Graduate College and when one of my co-workers came to me for a brief lesson on singular possessive and plural possessive.

And there again, when I learned that businesses are spending billions to teach employees how to write. What is happening in our primary education system when people aren't graduating with the basic ability to communicate in writing?

Language is the foundation of human interaction and command of it is one of the most fundamental skills for human advancement and development. If only we placed as much emphasis on this skill as we do on other skills, our societies would be so much better off.