At some point during my 35+ year evolution as a college writing instructor, it gradually became clear to me that the teaching of what we call surface problems – grammar, usage, punctuation, spelling, and the like – was a generally useless enterprise. For one thing, by the time that students get to college they demonstrate a degree and range of surface problems that is impossible to address to a group of 25-30 students showing the whole degree and range of such problems; to address problems that were only problems to a few at any one time was a waste of time for most everyone involved; the best I could do was identify those few problems shared by the majority on any one assignment to work on in class. Also, and more important, as we ask students in college writing to engage in subjects new to them (that’s much of what college is about), whatever fluency they have when writing in their range of knowledge and experience inevitably goes by the way. (It does for me – and you – as well.) Writing is a skill that’s really a constellation of skills, attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors that are developed over time through experience, reading and writing, in school and beyond. (I’m still learning – and so are you.) Finally, too much emphasis on the surface problems (what the lay public and students tend to think of as “writing”) draws attention away from what really matters in effective writing, the global issues – content, focus, organization, and development. So by the last decade of my teaching college writing, I’d cut back considerably on the surface problems, focusing in class and in comments on papers on the global issues (except when it was necessary to point out excessive surface problems that led to the distortion or distraction of ideas).
That being said, there remains in me the stereotypical stickler English teacher that bristles at certain misuses of the language. And here are my top five:
1. seem(s) – “I seem to have forgotten my book” or “It seems to be raining.” When something is obviously the case, you don’t need to equivocate. Take a stand. Go out on a limb. Demonstrate you have the ability (and courage) to observe and describe the world around you as you see it.
2. I think/I believe/I feel – “I think American Idol is the best show on TV” or “I believe that we should get out of Afghanistan” or “I feel Obama gets too much credit because he’s black.” As in #1, don’t be defensive. Take a stand. Write a declarative sentence. You’re the writer, so we know what you write is what you think or believe or feel.
3. ! – “I couldn’t believe I’d finally graduated!” or “I woke up and the sun was shining!” Exclamation marks should be used sparingly, preferably not at all. As F. Scott Fitzgerald noted, “An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.” Only use them when quoting direct dialogue that exclaims (“You’re shitting me!”), but you probably won’t be doing that much in your academic or work writing.
4. downfall for downside – “The lack of explosions and car chases is the downfall of this movie.” This problem started showing up in the past decade and has grown in the past few years. “Downfall” is the failure or ruin of a person (“Watergate was Nixon’s downfall.”). “Downside” is a negative aspect to an otherwise positive thing (“The cost of the Maserati is a downside.”).
5. everyday/every day – “You should go to the psychiatrist everyday” or “The every day price is less than $10.) You can find this problem not only in student writing but in national advertising, publications, and businesses; just the other day (otherday?) I found it in The Washington Post. It’s pretty simple: “everyday” is an adjective meaning normal or routine (“I have my everyday routine.”) and “every day” is an adjective-noun compound meaning “each day” (“I go to the psychiatrist every day.”). If you can substitute “each day” for “every day,” then it’s two words. (There is a sense of “everyday” as a noun – “This has become a part of the everyday” – but it’s mostly literary and rare.) This isn’t a major problem, I admit, as I typically know what is meant. But I don’t know why the distinction is so difficult to make and that’s what stops me each time I see the error. It’s just a personal thing.
Curiously, only the fourth of these is a usage error, and the fifth a spelling error; the first three are stylistic faults, not errors. I can live with comma splices and dangling modifiers and its instead of it’s. I mark them, yes, but they don’t make me cringe as the five above do. And I suspect that that’s because they don’t disturb or distort the point trying to be made the way my five (or at least the first four) do. Again, I’m an English teacher. I’m allowed my quibbles.
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