~By Scott Pinkmountain

March 4th was National Grammar Day and has been since 2008. I know this because I was listening to NPR, not because I’m particularly concerned with grammar. Except that of course, as writers and readers, we’re all deeply concerned with grammar (consciously or not), so every day is national grammar day within the boundaries of our own personal sovereign (despotic, financially ruinous) nations. What was interesting about the discussion I heard on the radio was that the conversation focused almost exclusively on the degradation of language as written in text messages and emails, but even more importantly, on the time limitations faced by the authors of those degraded documents.

The whole conversation rapidly devolved to a kvetch-fest about how little time we all have, which seems to be less related to grammar in specific and more related to much larger, arguably far more important things. Like novels. Continue reading →