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Originally Posted by Herbie Jackson
Good grammar along with good spelling are simply tools, with some written work it is absolutely essential yet with others it's not. Legibility and understanding the meaning of what is written is the most important part of any piece work, .
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May not be essential in all cases, but it's important in all. In written language, we don't have the tone of voice, facial expressions and body language as cues to what the person is trying to communicate, so it becomes far more important to have the sentence structured in such a way that the need for these diminishes. This is one of the reasons why people tend to take offence very easily on internet forums, and why smileys made their debut - some people may love them, others hate them, but they do aid communication.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbie Jackson
self appointed grammar police can't wait to rip someones work apart yet never read it or enjoy it's message. Look back far enough to see where language came from and how it evolved, there is little to get excited about grammar.
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And very often, the SAGP are wrong, or at least out of date. I disagree with the lack of excitement, though - the history of English, as with most languages, is actually very interesting. The argument is often made that people got along for centuries with different spellings (at least 8 variations of Shakespeare's name, for instance) and a very loose grammatical structure, but that ignores the fact that populations were far smaller, and except for a small elite, most people lived close to each other, spoke the same dialect, didn't travel and couldn't read. As soon as the population began to expand and the availiability of printed books widened the audience for information, the need for clarity of expression began to make itself felt.