Are you a grammar lover or loather?

Tomorrow is National Grammar Day. (Yep, there’s a day for that too.)

Much like a pantomime villain, grammar is something lots of us love to hate. And yet, as I’ve said before, we use it all the time—more often than not, correctly and effortlessly.

Oh, yes you do! 😅

____________________________________________________________________________________

Although plain language isn’t about grammar as such, both are about helping writers to sound competent, clear and easy to understand.

To give you just a few examples, grammar makes the difference between:

• Being a workplace joker (‘You might encounter gremlins using an old computer’) and being someone just experiencing computer problems (‘When using an old computer, you might encounter gremlins’)

• Making a not-so-good impression (‘We done real good’) and knocking it out of the park (‘We did really well’)

• Raising a titter (‘He barely said a word’) and sounding professional (‘He said barely a word’)

• Being ambiguous (‘Paul’s colleague was relieved when he got dressed again’) and being crystal clear (‘His colleague was relieved when Paul got dressed again’).

____________________________________________________________________________________

Images adapted from Freepik