![[back]](/images/back.gif)
| What's This All About? | |||||
| I used to think that
grammar was a highly
unnecessary chore thrown upon us by evil English teachers who had a
special place in hell set aside just for them. Class was nothing but
tedium and took up valuable time better used for more interesting lessons
in becoming a better programmer. Throughout junior high and high school I
struggled with this mess and did just enough to get acceptable grades so
that I could get into a computer science department at a University that
didn't completely suck. (How's that for a goal?)
I ended up in the Department of Computer Science at UC Riverside. The department didn't suck (in hindsight, I think it was quite good) but the administration did. At any rate, one of the requirements for our department was that we needed to take some courses in the humanities and social sciences. (Typical.) I figured I'd take Creative Writing because it looked interesting. I also thought it would be a great way to meet women. The first course was great -- and much to my surprise, I enjoyed the course work more so than the fact that there were 21 women and 4 guys in the class. I even started my own e-zine SPONGE! so that I'd have an excuse to write more often. I got an 'A' for my first class, Creative Writing 56, and life was good. Then I took Creative Writing 162, "Intermediate Fiction" by professor Stephen Minot. (Pronounced "My-not", not "Minnow"). And reality gave me a swift kick in the ass... He returned my first paper with the comment, "There's a story in here somewhere. Rewrite it in English so that I can find it." Ouch... I made an appointment to go see him so that we could review the story and I'd get a chance to see what about the story he specifically had a hard time with. The conference went from a few minute talk on specific components of the story to a two hour lecture on grammar. What Professor Minot did for my ability to write that quarter was nothing short of remarkable. Now, I'm still not an excellent writer. Heaven knows I make a ton of mistakes. But it's still better than average, and that's not good. What made that lesson especially tough wasn't so much that it forced me to deal with a subject I had hated for so long, but that it made me realize how crappy a lot of other people's communication skills are. And when I can see flaws in other people's grammar, you know it has to be in a truly sorry state of affairs... Now with the Internet, I find that I communicate with a large number of people primarily through e-mail and the web. This means our ability to convert thoughts into clear and understandable English is more crucial than ever. Unfortunately, I'm finding a lot of folks have terrible writing skills. For most it's a lot of little mistakes. For others it's downright amazing they managed to graduate high school. This is where Grammar for Geeks comes in. Basically, it is my attempt to simplify and explain enough grammar to help a technical person become a better communicator. It isn't meant to be a text book replacement, after all, if it was boring the first time around what makes you think I'd subject others to this for a second time? More importantly, what makes ME think I could even teach it!?!? The recommended audience for these pages (that are still under development -- submissions welcome) are people who are interested in improving their written English without a lot of work. This is especially important for developers who *gasp* have to document their code.
|