The Glory of Grammar
Breathes there a lad with soul so dead who never to his teacher said, “Why do we have to learn this stuff?” What do parts of speech and sentence structure have to do with finding a job or filling out a tax return or living life? Only this: the study of grammar reveals the operation of a most amazing gift.
To imagine life without grammar we need look no further than the fictional city of Lagado, visited by Dr. Gulliver on his Travels. At the celebrated Academy, certain learned professors have developed the theory that “in Reality all things imaginable are but Nouns.”
Therefore, language can and should be simplified–this will make it more honest and save wear and tear on the lungs, so everyone will live longer. Since “words are only names for Things,” the most learned men of Lagado carry about with them suitable objects of discourse, holding “conversations” by taking items out of the sacks and showing them to each other. As a result, no schoolboy in Lagado will ever be asked to diagram a sentence. But neither will he be likely to experience an original idea.
Intelligent animals, such as dogs and dolphins, probably think in nouns, or concepts—their brains a warren of things, each connected to concrete experience. Hunger is an empty stomach; fear is a fang or claw. Animals clearly communicate, but on a practical level; any kind of speculative discourse is impossible. To recall hunger when one doesn’t feel it, or imagine fear when there is nothing to cause it, is to leap the great chasm between the beastly and the human; between God’s work, and his image. How is this accomplished?
Grammar.
I could flaunt some elegant words with precise meanings in this paragraph, but without the rules of syntax I would no more be understood than, he pedantic a catechizes in peal scribble cryptic. Follow me you? Tedious as they may seem, the rules that occasionally pop up to slap us on the wrist (“Hey! You have a dangling participle here!”) are what allow the language to function. If what you are reading this moment makes sense, it’s because of standard English form: Subjects come before verbs; adjectives always precede the nouns they modify; every preposition must have an object. Even when the rules appear to be broken, an overriding principle allows for it.
Like bone structure, language structure is logical but not rigid. It provides the framework that may be fleshed out in words. Because of grammar, we can explain the steps for a computer program, describe a poignant memory, make a friend laugh, demolish a faulty argument or construct a sound one. As we use it, we find that language not only expresses our thought but shapes it; without language, we could hardly think at all. And grammar is the underlying logic of language, the logos that holds it together.
This is wonderful enough, but even more wonderful is how we learn it. A five-year-old can express abstract thoughts in complete sentences so complex most of us would have trouble diagramming them. But still we understand, because the child is (unknowingly) following the rules. What is very difficult for a machine, as anyone knows who has run a document through a computer translator or grammar check, is literally child’s play for us. We pass on the patterns of language so effortlessly, it seems miraculous.
Not miraculous, in the dictionary meaning of that word. But it is a gift. Our minds are programmed for language because we live in a created world of meaning, not a world of random nouns. God speaks to us, and invites us to speak to him. Every correctly diagrammed sentence uncovers a bit more of the astonishing gift of language that elevates us to a place a little lower than the angels, and all to the praise of His glory.
The next time your sixth-grader complains about grammar exercises, tell him that!
