Griping about grammar

Yes, it’s been awhile since I’ve devoted a post to the ins and outs and the innate beauty of grammar. Mostly because I make enough grammar mistakes myself to write an entire book about that and because I fear that other people are not as enamored with words and using them correctly as I am.

Because I love words. I love grammar. I love parallelism and precise words and coherence and gerunds and verbs. I savor the satisfied feeling of finding the perfect phrase to express what you’re feeling. I revel in discussions of style and mechanics. I realize this is slightly weird, but I fell in love with the power of words and grammar a long, long time ago. And we’re in this for the long haul.

And lately, there have been a few little points of grammar that have been bugging me. Namely in songs we’re singing in choir—and, yes, I understand that songwriting is a little bit of a different animal, but still, grammar should count for something. So are you ready to talk grammar with me? Because here we go:

Grammar Issue #1: who v. that A song we’re singing in choir has the lyric “the Savior that was born.” I recently had to revamp a bunch of devotions written by a writer who didn’t understand when to use that and when to use who. And really, that one’s pretty simple. Who is for people. (i.e. The Savior WHO was born) and that is for things (the door that I opened). If you want to get all technical, who is for people and pets who have names, but that’s just if you’re a bit nerdy like me and like to keep these things on file in your brain.

Grammar Issue #2: Is that what you really meant to say? (previously known as the second Grammar Issue #1) Another issue I’ve been running into is things that don’t really make much sense or by the way they are written, say something entirely different than intended. The big one from one of the songs we’re singing has to do with a lyric about angels singing “at the Baby’s sight.” I get that the writer meant the angels sang when they saw Jesus. I get that something had to rhyme with night. But I also know that as written that means they were praising the fact that Jesus could see. I’m not suggesting a change; I’m just telling it like I see it. (See it! Ha! Get it! Oh, never mind. Let me enjoy my own weird word humor.) Another example of this was something I heard a newscaster say yesterday. She was talking about a Metro police officer who was shot in the line of duty and was recently honored by the city council or something. Anyway, the anchor was trying to say that Mark Chestnut, the officer who had been shot, was honored. Instead because of the unfortunate use of a dangling modifier,her statement literally meant that the man was shot during the ceremony to honor him. I don’t think that’s what she meant to say. At. All.

Grammar Issue #3: Impact as a verb. I realize not everyone agrees with me on this one. I realize some people think I’m stuck in some archaic previous generation who held hard and fast to this rule. I don’t care. I think I’m right because I am being faithful to the actual meaning of the word. Basically, the word means that something came into forcible contact with something else. End of story. In the last few years, people have begun to use impact as a verb to mean something had a strong effect on something else. It’s that usage that irks me. Because impact can be a verb—one describes the action of one thing slamming into another thing, like two cars in an accident. I should stop insisting impact isn’t a verb and be more specific: impact is not a transitive verb, even though some respected sources accept this usage that I abhor. But at its core, impact doesn’t mean have a strong effect on. It means forceful, slamming-into-something contact. The word has just been usurped and given a verb meaning it may or may not actually cover. And that has resulted in such made-up words as impactful, which is just hideous. I just think there are more precise words that can be used to convey what the writer is trying to get across, like affect or even a phrase: have an impact on.

Obviously, I could wax eloquent (or not, you’re welcome to your opinion to my eloquence) about grammar for years. But I have work to do. And things to edit. And grammar to ponder.

Yay, words!