A victim of the new simplified approach to teaching in English in Scottish primary schools in the 1970s, I was never taught what a split infinitive was or even what a preposition or past participle was. Is it something I’d like to go back and slap a few educators for? Yes, it is, but I accept that most people wouldn’t share my view. After all, how many of us really need to know that stuff? The bit of me that would dearly love to be up to the task of writing a Booker-Prize-winning novel probably does but the rest of me is perfectly content with being someone whose grammar is less than perfect.
The hole in Scottish education did, at least, allow proper exploration of other writing-related matters. Punctuation, for example, was a relatively big deal and turned me into the pedant I am today. I confess, I even had a whole paragraph about grocers’ apostrophes in ‘Kat’ until I came to my senses. Do I always stick to the rules? Nope, but I chalk that up to author’s privilege 😊 “But, what about but?” I hear you ask. Is there anything more likely to split a crowd than whether or not it’s okay to start a sentence with but (or and)? As you can tell from my books, I’m a fan. It never ceases to amaze me that people will argue until they’re blue in the face that the word ‘but’ should never grace the space following a full stop but are perfectly happy with ‘on the other hand’, ‘however’, ‘although’, ‘still’, etc. Check a thesaurus, people! But then, we are all a victim of our educators. On that note, don’t get me started on the teacher who told my daughter’s class there were only three ways they should use an apostrophe: to show ownership, to replace a missing letter and, I kid you not, when the word is a plural. I think I might have ranted for a week after that one.
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