Stop fretting about your grammar!
It’s not as important as you think.
Below is a transcript of the video.
Hello and welcome to my channel!
I’m Dr Clare Lynch of Doris and Bertie and it’s my mission to help you become a better, more confident writer.
Today on the channel, I have a very important public service announcement for you: stop fretting about grammar!
It doesn’t matter!
Ok, so that’s a bold and contentious statement. And not strictly true. Because of course grammar matters!
But I’m pretty sure you’re worrying too much about grammar.
And by too much, I mean at the expense of other, more important things.
So the grammar worriers I work with fall into two categories - and if you’re a grammar worrier too, you’ll be in one of them.
So you’ll either be 1. someone who speaks English as your first language.
Or 2. you’re speaking and writing in English as your second language.
I want to talk about both types of grammar worrier in this video and explain why, whichever type of grammar worry bod you are, you’ve probably got nothing to worry about.
”NATIVE” SPEAKER
So let’s take the “native” speakers first. These include many of my corporate clients who I run writing workshops for.
Before a workshop, I’ll usually ask people what they want to cover in the class or what they think they most need help with.
And there will always be people who say they want a class on “grammar and punctuation”.
There seems to be a real insecurity there.
But it’s an insecurity that is totally misplaced.
If English is your first language, you already know how to use perfectly good English grammar.
You have an instinctive, completely unself-conscious knowledge of the rules, or conventions rather.
You apply them every, single day without a second thought.
After all, you don’t ask for assistance in a shop and think…
“Ooh, did I just use a dangling modifier?”
Or you don’t call your best friend for a chat and go…
““ooh, am I using the correct verb tense here?”
Or you don’t contribute to a meeting at work and think….
“Hmm, how does subject-verb agreement work again?”
Right? You use the language and correct grammar without thinking about it.
And you may not even know what a dangling modifier is…
but has that lack of knowledge ever held you back from being understood?
Now, I get it. Spoken English is different from written English.
It’s more ephemeral and throwaway.
And people’s expectations of perfect grammar are lower.
And obviously you don’t have to punctuate the spoken word…
you don’t have to worry about “ooh, should I use an oxford comma there?”
But still...
when people ask me to teach them grammar, I always wonder what exactly they want me to teach them - and above all, why.
And that’s not to say that there aren’t certain grammar rules…
or quite often conventions rather than strict rules...
And you may want clarification on them.
And I’m more than happy to be your guide to that sort of thing on this channel.
But here’s the thing: when it comes to writing, there are
So, so, so many bigger wins to be had.
You’re going to improve your writing much, much more by focusing on those bigger wins.
And these are things like…
What’s the best overall structure for this piece I’m writing?
What’s my purpose for writing this - what do I want to achieve with it?
And above all…
Who is my reader - and how can I best serve them with this piece of writing?
Now. That’s speakers of English as their first language.
But what if English isn’t your first language? Well, first of all, I get it.
IF ENGLISH IS YOUR SECOND LANGUAGE
When you’re learning a second language you have to grapple with the grammar…
as I know all-too-well from my pathetic attempts to learn italian.
But here’s the thing…
In some ways, you have an advantage over native speakers - because you’ve studied the grammar which many English speakers haven’t.
You know how to talk about the language...
You know how to articulate whether - and why - something is grammatically correct or not.
But even here, there are bigger wins to be had.
I once had an international student ask me if it was possible to get a first - or a distinction - in an essay at Cambridge…
without perfect English.
And my answer was “absolutely - yes”.
And I knew that because I’d had students who’d written me fantastic essays that still had grammatical errors...
and those students went on to get distinctions in their essays.
But so, so, often when I ask my international students at Cambridge what they feel their writing challenges are, they’ll typically say things like…
“linking words”...
“increasing my vocabulary”...
or “prepositions and articles”
And maybe that’s what you would say too.
And if you’re doing - or have done - IELTS...
or some other test like that...
I totally get why those are the things that you might be worried about.
Because those types of exams - IELTS and the like - are designed to test you on your knowledge and facility with those things.
So, I’m not saying stop bothering about whether to use meanwhile or moreover.
Or remembering the difference between in and on.
Or how not to get your articles wrong (pretty much impossible by the way).
But what I am saying is that…
Once you reach a certain level, you need to step back and think bigger.
If you’re doing professional or university-level writing you need to care about things beyond grammar.
You need to understand writing, and that writing well isn’t the same as writing with correct grammar.
Writing isn’t grammar.
And that focusing too much on grammar…
If it’s at the expense of bigger wins... is a poor use of your time...
And that a piece of writing can be 100% grammatically correct (whatever that means).
But it will fail if it fails to meet the reader’s expectations of what “good” writing looks like.
In a business context, that means something clear, concise and purposeful.
In an academic context, that means writing that, as a minimum, is…
clear, well-structured, fully evidenced…
and in line with the conventions of your discipline.
DOES GRAMMAR MATTER?
So, yes, I’ll accept it. Grammar matters.
But I guarantee it’s not as much as you think it does.
So if you’re worried your grammar’s not up to scratch, my advice is…
Yes, do what you can to improve…
But stop fretting and start writing.
For more writing advice, enrol in my online course, Writing With Confidence, available at the Doris and Bertie Writing School.
