The Tower of Babel

At last, someone has brilliantly dissected the complexities surrounding grammar. In her article, Amy Martinsen broke grammar into logical pieces, Grammar 1,2 & 3, examined its past, present, and future, acknowledged its terrible reputation and the fears, confusion, and frustration it evokes (and I thought it was just me!), but most importantly, confirmed that, indeed, grammar is still deserving of an important place in our classrooms.

Martinsen emphasized how heavily our world relies on written communication; as an employee in corporate America, I can validate that by the enormity of the daily electronic communications generated and received. Nevertheless, I have noticed a steady decline in the importance one places on grammar and on good writing in general in the business world. Many e-mail messages, and even official corporate communications, are riddled with split infinitives, passive sentences, pronoun errors, misspellings, and overall poor writing. Our company consists of countless intelligent and highly educated people, but; amazingly, many of them seem to either lack a basic knowledge of grammar or view grammar as a diminishing virtue.

Through her insight, Martinsen sheds light on a puzzling question that I have pondered: How can people walk away from universities, advanced degrees in hand, and not be able to write coherent, grammatically correct sentences?