The Craft Of Storytelling

No one is really concerned. We're just looking for new excuses to spank each other.


Of course, there are some old texts whose meaning is hard to recover, exactly because of the lack of punctuation. Knowing where a sentence ends can sometimes make a big difference in meaning. And if you go back far enough in time, you'll see that peopledidnotbothertomarkworddivisionsinanywaywhatsoever. The empty space between words is probably the most underappreciated punctuation mark.

And it wasn't long ago that Katie B was looking for an English to Geordie translator .. looks like there could be a full time job here for Lori ...

Punctuation is, to my mind, much more important than grammar. If a character in a story says, *I never done it," we understand, even although it is ungrammatical; should an author write, "We was stood standin' there," we get the picture.

A misplaced comma, however, can change the whole meaning of a sentence. Consider:

A woman, without her man, is nothing.

and

A woman: without her, man is nothing.

Now look at these two letters. Note that the wording is exactly the same. Only the punctuation (and the meaning) has been changed.

Dear Jack,

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy - will you let me be yours?

Jill

Now this:

Dear Jack,

I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men I yearn! For you I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?

Yours,

Jill

Punctuation is unimportant? I think not!

Poor Jack!

Punctuation was less essential when the messages were less likely to be complicated: Beowulf killed Grendel, not the sort of stuff I have to explain at work.

At school I remember the teacher giving the example (from the book - from him it would have had dry humour):

The headmaster said Smith is a good cricketer.

Or: "The headmaster," said Smith, "is a good cricketer."

I didn't quite have the nerve to suggest the option I'd thought up:

The headmaster, Said Smith, is a good cricketer.

There is also the example given of how Dylan Thomas's most famous line could be murdered:

"Do not go gentle into that. Good night!"

Poor Jack indeed! Imagine if he'd got that letter with no punctuation. He'd not know if he was on to a good thing or if he was dumped!

Perfectly reasonable example!

I recall marking an essay from a first year pupil (aged 12) whose task was to describe himself. He wrote, *I have big ears on my left leg. I have a scar."

Mutants of the world, unite!

My favourite spelling error was in an essay about the school and its surroundings. I was somewhat disturbed when a girl wrote that she didn't like the playground because it was full of "sweaty rapers."

It turned out that she was discussing the litter problem, and meant "sweetie (candy) wrappers".

flopsy, you ask if biscuit dunking is a British thing? It is I would think but surely it's only the lower classes that are allowed to do it! It was always frowned upon in the politest tea parties when I was young. Even worse though was when we went on holiday to France and witnessed French people actually dunking their croissants in their coffee! I remember my grandmother being so traumatised by it that she mentioned it for years afterwards as if it was the most disgraceful thing she had ever witnessed. Almost worse than having your elbows on the table!

In my mind, the important thing to remember about grammar the number of English teachers on the bestseller lists. Usually that number is zero.

Then you have those who murdered grammar on a regular basis - people such as JK Rowling who routinely misuses punctuation and capitalization to tell a story - and who make the bestseller lists and has sold something around 400 million books.

I agree that you need some mastery of grammar to tell a story, but I disagree that a story needs reach for a high standard of grammar. When it comes to reading stories on the internet I've always found that the two biggest obstacles to enjoying a story were the lack of paragraphs and lack of white space, not misused commas, abused colons, odd capitalization, or any of the finer pointers of grammar.

Short, choppy sentences short (as a rule) be avoided, but they are a tool that many writers use. It comes to dialogue most of the niceties of grammar should be tossed in the flavour of the flow of conversational English.

I've seen beginning writers post stories with awful grammar, and watched them horn their craft and improve as authors as they go. No one should ever think that their story needs to be perfect before they post it - for as long as rival style guides exist there is no way to write the perfect story. No, it can not be done... or should that be 'it cannot be done' (which is a point of grammar that some people will rage over over). Until such time that English becomes a codified language we can accept many, many imperfections in grammar.

Goodgulf

I don't think anyone was suggesting that there's any correlation between being able to write well and sales. The tabloid newspapers outsell the broadsheets, appalling hack writers like Dan Brown outsell Thomas Hardy etc. What I understood was being discussed is the fact that grammar and especially punctuation are important and Linda provided numerous examples that illustrate how in the worst cases the intended meaning can be lost altogether.