Comment by geocrasher | Hacker News Reader

Comment by geocrasher | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me a lot of the coaching given by the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress. That actually did help me become a better writer as I blogged, but I really think this methodology is limited.

PERFECT Grammar is optional. (edited from "Grammar is optional" because people didn't recognize the hyperbole. My bad)

Sure, you have to have the basic grammar that everyone understands so that your writing can be understood. Beyond that, style takes over. I learned this from a newspaper columnist years ago. He didn't follow the Exact Rules. He made up some of his own, and his writing was better for it!

And so it is with me. I write to be understood and hopefully easy to read, and maybe, just maybe, be entertaining. Grammar is only part of the equation for me.

So what do I tell people? Use these tools (Grammarly, Hemmingway, etc) to become a better writer, and when you feel like you've met your goal, toss them. They're good for the purpose, but will limit you in the long run.

> Grammar is optional.

Grammar is mandatory. Following a specific style guide is optional.

I really, really wish more people understood the difference between grammar, which is how a language works, and style, which is how a specific organization or person has decreed that language must be used or else they will become very, very cross with you.

English flexible very. Grammar optional. Convey much thinkings philosophy attitude deliberate dissonance. Education class wealth signifiers == code switching; academic pretense.

Audience knowledge crucial. one style !fits all.

I understood the ideas you're trying to convey, but the annoyance I experienced with the conveyance was palpable. :)

Then I'm afraid I got my meaning across entirely clearly.

This is why grammar is not optional. I have no clue what you said or are trying to convey. Yeah english is flexible, but that doesn't mean you can just drop articles and sentence structure.

Leading to the question of whether "understanding" is the responsibility of the speaker or the listener.

In a world where every other fact is contended, it's unlikely there will be agreement about that either.

Without grammar, you have words being used completely at random. Using words the way you are, with reduced syntactic structure, is still using grammar, even if you use more punctuation instead of words; that said, the difference between punctuation & word is somewhat blurred even in formal writing.

> Audience knowledge crucial. one style !fits all.

And this is the essence of style.

This reminds me of that episode of the office.

You broke my compiler!

> English flexible very.

Syntax error: verb required.

> Grammar optional.

Syntax error: verb required.

> Convey much thinkings philosophy attitude deliberate dissonance.

Syntax error: clause contains too many nouns.

> Education class wealth signifiers == code switching; academic pretense.

Syntax error: verb required. Punctuation not recognized: "==".

> Audience knowledge crucial.

Syntax error: verb required.

> one style !

Syntax error: verb required. Warning: sentence is uncapitalized. Warning: space exists between last word and final punctuation (french mode not enabled).

> fits all.

Syntax error: subject required. Warning: sentence is uncapitalized.

Your compiler was broken; I didn't break it:

Verbs are not always required:

"Why?"

"Because."

"Dude!"

"Kinda?"

"Just no."

Contains too many nouns is not a thing. Your compiler should have errored on a mismatch between discrete and continuous quantities (much thinkings should either be many thoughts or much thinking) and then on a compound noun without hyphenation.

Creative punctuation is normal; really, we've only standardized on punctuation since the mid-1700s or so.

Capitalization is, again, stylistic: e.e. cummings, notably, was against it. So was Archie.

And you broke on == and !fits, but the context of reading Hacker News ought to equip your parser with adequate sidechains.

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