Grammar

Why Grammar??

Grammar is important because it is the language that makes it possible for us to talk about language. Grammar names the types of words and word groups that make up sentences not only in English but in any language. 

As human beings, we can put sentences together even as children—we can all do grammar. 

But to be able to talk about how sentences are built, about the types of words and word groups that make up sentences—that is knowing about grammar. 

And knowing about grammar offers a window into the human mind and into our amazingly complex mental capacity.

Using the English language is a skill just like any other. There are many different ways of knowing about the things we do – and the more we know about something the better we generally do it. Think about using this website – you know how to navigate between pages but that doesn't mean that you know how the coding behind the pages is constructed, or that you could fix any software problems that might arise. 

Could you write a website yourself? Understanding grammar means learning the system that underlies the English language. Learning about English grammar will give you insight into the way the language works, and sometimes doesn't work, and enable you to:

develop confidence in using written English

build a conceptual map of the structure of English

understand editorial feedback about your grammar usage

use style guides effectively to improve your written expression

break grammatical rules purposefully and flout conventions with panache

know why some 'non-standard' usage is not sloppy.

History of English grammars

The first published English grammar was a Pamphlet for Grammar of 1586, written by William Bullokar with the stated goal of demonstrating that English was just as rule-based as Latin. Bullokar's grammar was faithfully modeled on William Lily's Latin grammar, Rudimenta Grammatices (1534), used in English schools at that time, having been "prescribed" for them in 1542 by Henry VIII. Bullokar wrote his grammar in English and used a "reformed spelling system" of his own invention; but many English grammars, for much of the century after Bullokar's effort, were written in Latin, especially by authors who were aiming to be scholarly. John Wallis's Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (1685) was the last English grammar written in Latin.

Even as late as the early 19th century, Lindley Murray, the author of one of the most widely used grammars of the day, was having to cite "grammatical authorities" to bolster the claim that grammatical cases in English are different from those in Ancient Greek or Latin.

English parts of speech are based on Latin and Greek parts of speech.[36] Some English grammar rules were adopted from Latin, for example John Dryden is thought to have created the rule no sentences can end in a preposition because Latin cannot end sentences in prepositions. The rule of no split infinitives was adopted from Latin because Latin has no split infinitives.