The Grammar Police

I have always had a passion for studying literature and at 16 I was proudly one of those strange students that enjoy writing essays. For Literature GCSE we studied a variety of texts, my personal favourite being 'An Inspector Calls' by JB Priestly. I mastered the format and skills needed for those particular essays rather early on which meant, to my disgust and coinciding with the usual, tedious secondary school manner, I had to help the slower kids. And so, with the desperate hope to please my favourite teacher, a sassy, American lady with awesome hair and a very quick wit, I endlessly coached my table of time wasters and gum chewers until they too remembered to discuss the author's purpose and link such examples with the context of the play. 

 There are many disappointments in life, I was quick to realise. Amongst the worst are: savoury muffins and accidentally picking up low fat mayonnaise in the supermarket. For me, the worst by far is the tragic, unfortunate event of being stuck in a lesson, or any social situation for that matter, with a dunce who cannot consistently construct and grammatically correct sentence. For me, bad grammar is the savoury muffin of every English classroom. 

 Personally, I don't feel that grammar is a difficult thing to learn. When I was in year 3 and at a hideous primary school, determined to terrify the pupils into believing in God with the thret that we would all end up in the callous pits of hell, I was naturally eager to please. I eventually got so tired of being trapped in a constant state of confusion over which version of 'your' to us in each sentence that I later went home and, rather than repeatedly write out random words off of this week's 'spellings list', wrote out the different versions of 'where,' 'there,' and 'your' and taught myself how to use them accurately and appropriately. Consequently, never have I used the wrong 'your' or any of the other prime examples incorrectly in a sentence. At the mere age of 8 I mastered the 'yours'.' 

 Bearing that in mind and fast forwarding again to myself as a passionate literature student, you can probably empathise with my irritation when my mock essays were marked as only an A grade because I "could have linked to the context more coherently throughout." Meanwhile, over in the corner of my table, a gum chewer sat arrogantly with his A* having, to my utter disgust, used the word 'your' as a shortened version of 'you are.' Surely it must be a joke? I'm afraid not. I remember the essay clearly. After we had thoroughly but enthusiastically explored the build-up of tension between Sheila and her mother in the play, we were set a mock essay to write as homework. The groans that erupted from the Gum Chewers and the Hair Fiddlers were not only impertinent but also impossible to empathise with. I remember thinking to myself, "We're doing GCSE's, what do they expect?" I spent hours drafting and planning. I made tick lists to make sure I referred to the writer's purpose and context with every paragraph. I annotated the question to make sure I knew exactly what I needed to write. I recall clearly the week we spent waiting for them to be marked, a wait which was made longer by the fact that one Hair Flicker didn't hand theirs in until 3 days after the due date. We got them back and I was pleased with my A, an A is a good grade and I had months to bump that up to an A*. It wasn't that I was disappointed in myself but I was disappointed in the education system. I was angry that mark schemes could allow students with poor basic literacy skills to do that well in a literary exam. 

 And I wasn't alone. I sat opposite another equally passionate literature student. She had long brown hair that came to her waist that every other girl was envious of and her brain was filled with every sophisticated word you could think of; the other kids referred to her as 'The Human Dictionary.' To my absolute relief, I had found someone like me: a fellow grammar enthusiast. We had been friends before, years ago, way back in year 7-8 but this was a whole different level. We talked for a whole lunchtime about how inadequate and unacceptable bad grammar really was and how easy it is to get it right. Over the next few months I found a true ally in the English classroom. The Human Dictionary and I bonded over many lengthy debated such as how absurd it was that we were even put into the same class as people who couldn't spell properly. It was an abomination that a student who couldn't use the correct 'there' should even be awarded higher than a C grade. We would recommend books for each other to read and when it came to leaving that school for good, I felt deeply saddened to be leaving my fellow grammar fanatic behind. We planned weekends we would spend in the garden reading for hours and I expressed my jealousy over her book collection. I felt a healthy and enjoyable pressure to expand my reading regime to impress her. Inevitably, due to long journeys to each other's houses and the lack of essay construction to bond over, we grew apart. It was a bigger loss than I could ever have anticipated or even prepared myself for. 

 Lonely and bitter without my companion or confidant, I became cold and completely without any compassion for those who could not spell properly. 

 I didn't often get flirted with at secondary school... or any other form of school for that matter. My mum always told me it was because I was "too pretty" and I "scare them away." In retrospect, I can clearly see it was simply because my intolerance for those incapable of matching my passion for learning comes across as being abrupt and, in some few cases, unpleasant. The first time I experienced flirting, the summer after I left school, I was contacted by a seemingly friendly kid in my tutor group whom I had never really spoken to much before. The guy made a very rookie mistake by doing it over Facebook chat. Not only was this attempt unsuccessful because of the distinct lack of romance, but more so because it gave me a perfect opportunity to check out his spelling. I was sat in my younger sister's bedroom watching our usual marathon of Harry Potter films, simply because there wasn't much else to do. His name popped up on my screen and I thought it was just the usual nostalgia of leaving school and the burning need to keep up with as many people as possible, a feeling that I hadn't really experienced; I felt the need to abandon as many people as possible and run, as fast as my feet would carry me, away from the apostrophe crimes miss matched 'yours.' As soon as the conversation took off, dread filled my body. An explosion of frustration and pure impatience for the copious, careless grammar mistakes that invaded my Facebook Messenger like a vicious plague. The only quotations from this particular conversation that you need to understand the extent of my, perhaps slightly harsh, reaction are as follows:

Bad Grammar Guy: your beautiful
Me: My beautiful what?
Bad Grammar Guy: ...I said your beautiful
Me: I do not understand what beautiful possession you are referring to?
Bad Grammar Guy: No, I mean you are beautiful
Me: Oh. You mean 'You're.' I have to go now. 

 I would justify my abrupt response by explaining that I was in a bad place and missing my only friend with an ability to empathise with my frustration. However, to be completely honest, I'm not even sorry. What kind of date would it have been? What kind of relationship would we have if someone of my intellectual ability was paired with someone who can't even use word 'conjunctions' accurately? Imagine the love letters that I would have to go through and edit before I could allow myself to read them in order to focus on the emotion rather than the spelling mistakes. It's not just an insult to my intelligence but it's deeply unattractive and a clear red flag for laziness. If my 8 year old self could self-teach how to use these words correctly, why couldn't a 16 year old 'gentlemen?' After about 10 minutes of relentless complaining and, perhaps inconsiderate, talking over Harry's emotional conversation with his God Father, my little sister told me to, "block him and shut up." So that is what I did. To this day, I haven't run into Bad Grammar Guy or had to speak to or of him. I often think of him though and think with sympathy to his poor A level teachers who won't have such an easy escape. 

 To my delight, I came out of GCSE English Literature with a strong A, as did my fellow grammar enthusiast, The Human Dictionary. I have no idea what grade the Gum Chewer got because I didn't wish to communicate with him further after finishing secondary school. Bad Grammar Guy and I, as previously stated, are no longer in contact for what I believe to be clear and understandable circumstances.