Thinking about grammar and punctuation

Sometimes one wonders these days about the future of such things as grammar, punctuation and penmanship.

These things in earlier times were highly valued in an educated population, and commonly were given high priority attention in all educational endeavors. For example, in the days of the Pea Ridge College, penmanship was a real emphasis for students who aspired to a business career. The thinking was, if someone is going to work in a bank, or oversee a business, or keep books for any kind of enterprise, he or she needs to be able to write neatly, legibly and accurately, so as to avoid errors, misunderstandings or being misinterpreted. Using clear and good language was important in all areas of communication, both verbal and written, and observing high standards of expression was highly valued for people who would be communicating with the public or writing for publications, or just producing quality personal correspondence.

Of course, when I use the word writing, in this instance, I am speaking of cursive writing, or as we normally spoke, writing in longhand. Early on, that would normally mean writing with a lead pencil or writing with a fountain pen. I don’t remember the days of quill pens to be dipped in ink wells on the school desks, but I do remember sitting at desks that had the opening for an ink well in the desk top, and a groove along the far part of the desktop for pencils or a pen.

It was in the late 1940s that we began to take seriously the idea that we might need to learn to type. We knew nothing of such rarities as word processors, although by the late 1940s I think certain dedicated word processors had been invented. I usually made pretty decent grades in school, but I well remember when I was in fourth grade in the little white building behind our main school building I got a “C” in penmanship. I hated that, so I worked really hard on being able to write “a better hand.” I never achieved as “nice a hand” as my father and mother wrote with, but I did get better, and I have never had anyone say to me that they couldn’t read my writing. I have at times marveled at how illegible the handwriting of some professionals, doctors to be specific, who surely must have practiced long hours to be able to scribble in such unfathomable ways.

In some ways, it seems that as our writing has turned to advanced technologies, the aspects of grammar, punctuation, spelling and so on, have fallen in quality. I’m thinking of my early experience with emailing. After hearing about electronic mail for some years, I took the invitation in 1996 to obtain an email account, set up a computer connected with a modem, and venture into email communications. It really turned out quite well, and I was glad to have that form of communication available, both in my work as a pastor, and in personal communications with friends and family. But I never really thought of emailing as a substitute for occasional hand-written letters or personal notes written in one’s own “hand.” To me, a hand-written note or a few cursive words on a card are far more personal than an email or any other form of social media message. Although handwritten record keeping has largely been replaced in business by word processing, spreadsheet applications and database applications, I still think any educated person should be able to read hand-written documents, and to write a note legibly in one’s own “hand.”

I have noticed since getting into emailing, that many people seem to see emailing as a quick and careless way of communicating. They send stuff without checking over what they have written, never check their spelling, never critique how they are using certain words, and either don’t punctuate their sentences at all or do so inconsistently. Such social media apps as Twitter seem to me to encourage carelessness of expression, hurried communications lacking thoroughness of thought, and thoughtlessness in general. Of course I acknowledge that my own ways of communication may be legitimately critiqued.

I have sometimes taken on a defense of our traditional Ozarks brogue. Although I don’t say “ain’t” as much as I used to, and I try sometimes to say things like “He and I had an interesting talk yesterday,” instead of saying “Me and him had ourselves a talk yesterdee.” But, to me, it is still OK to talk about airing up the tahrs on your car, or putting out a “fahr” in the grass on your place, or “hahrin’ somebody to mow yer yard.” But even with accepting some the older syntaxes of the Ozark and Texas languages, it still seems good to use words correctly, to punctuate your sentences meaningfully, to put some clear thinking into what you say, and sometimes to write it out in longhand.