Stay in control of your writing by reminding yourself about 3 little rules to make sure you know what you're doing when you break them.
High school English teachers the country over probably have many a sleepless night agonizing over the sad decline of the written word, the frequent and irritating mistakes that seem replete within current society. Misapplied apostrophes, maligned spellings, and—most prevalent of all—an annoying tendency to think that a word means something that it really doesn’t (has anybody bothered looking up the actual meaning of the word enormity?) plague a prescriptive mindset when it comes to language.
Now, there are a number of people who poo-poo the idea that language is anything more than a mercurial mess of migrating meaning, and the attempt to save English from an ignominious death is a laughable goal. They note that things change, so we should, too.
Of those things that change, a lot of them are the “exception to the rules” kinds of things. For example, it used to be utterly uncouth to end a sentence with a preposition: to, at, in, by, of, etc. Yet now it’s more frequent to hear the incorrect, “Where are you at?” than the correct “Where are you?” (which is interesting, because not only is the word at not supposed to be at the end of the sentence, it’s also superfluous—it doesn’t need to be there, because the question already infers location). But we still understand the question, so why worry?
As a writer, there are a lot of different conventions and rules that should be observed, especially in the narrative areas. For example, a sentence engorged with spelling errors, subject/verb agreement problems, and that pesky formatting issue is one that cannot really stand on its own. Have you ever tried to read a rant or a comment on a discussion board in which the writer apparently shifted his hands over one row of keys and started typing? It feels as though he’s typing through molasses, with maybe a half dozen words that even make sense.
Here are a couple of rules that you should be aware of, and, once they’re learned, you can break them at your leisure.
The non-word Ain’t:
Depending on your word processor, this “word” might even be flagged as a spelling error. Originally, it was a contraction of the phrase “I am not”, but it has since drifted in meaning to signify any number of negative connotations. The use of ain’t in non-dialogue areas can be justified, but only if you’re aware that it is not considered a standard word in any but the most insouciant of circumstances.
Double-negatives:
English is partly derived from more languages than makes sense, but part of the rules of grammar are based upon the idea of math, algebra in particular. Most writers will probably cringe at the comparison, but, on at least this one level, it makes sense. If you multiply -3 by -1 you’ll end up with a positive one: The same holds true of English. If you “don’t know nothing about it” you’re taking the two negatives and combining them in a way that technically makes it a positive. That’s why the rule is there: Break it at your discretion.
Apostrophes:
Most simply, an apostrophe is used to 1) connote possession, and 2) mark dropped letters from a word. Granted, it can get complicated (like everything in our wonderful language), but you don’t need to stress about it too much. Just remember, if you are dropping some letters, let the reader know (look at the subtitle of this article for an example). This is particularly important when the loss of the apostrophe could cause confusion. The word because is often said or abbreviated as ‘cuz, and/or ‘cause, depending on the writer. For the latter example, the word cause and ‘cause mean different things, and without the apostrophe to differentiate, there could be some problems.
(Side note on the apostrophe with the words its and it’s: a contraction is more important—that is, the marking of a dropped letter—than a possessive, so the contraction it is is spelled it’s. When it possesses something, then you write its: The cat batted at the ball with its paws.)
These are some fairly strict guidelines that, now knowing, you can feel free to bend them at your leisure. Use your power wisely, and only for good...writing.
