Re: About Your Grammar (was Passive-o-Matic)

[Martha J Davidson <editrix -at- SLIP -dot- NET>]

At 10:56 AM 12/7/98 -0500, Doug Nickerson asked:
>
>How did you learn the grammar you know?
>
>To be more TW focused, do you have innate ability, did you learn this on
>the job, observation of the writings of others, had a boss that was a
>particular stickler about ungrammatical constructions? Like these ones?

To begin with, I had phenomenal English teachers in junior high school,
who taught us the rudiments of English grammar, with all of the terminology
and the rules.  I don't know if it's innate or not, but I loved it.  I
really had
fun diagramming sentences and knowing the names of all of the verb tenses.

What really reinforced it was studying other languages.  As I learned French
and German, and later a bunch of Semitic languages, I developed a framework
for talking about the structure of language and I could map constructs in
one language family to those in others.  I got to see where the different
aspects of English came from and how they were similar to other languages.

And I use that every time I write a help topic, a page of a Quick Reference
guide, or a procedure in a User's Guide, even if I'm not conscious of it.

martha


--
Martha Jane {Kolman | Davidson}
mailto:editrix -at- slip -dot- net

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
 If I am only for myself, what am I?
 If not now, when?"
        --Hillel, "Mishna, Sayings of the Fathers 1:13"

 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=