The Trouble With Grammar

There’s a war raging in my office. 

The rules are few, the casualties many, and the only thing certain is that my sentences will never be the same again.

It all began this morning, when I attempted to write a simple letter to the editor. I was halfway through “Dear Editor, I hope this letter finds you well,” when a semicolon, resplendent in a paisley dressing gown, shuffled onto the page and cleared its throat.

“Ahem,” it said, adjusting its spectacles. “You can’t just join two independent clauses with a comma, you know. That’s a comma splice. Barbaric.”

I tried to ignore it, but it hovered, tutting and muttering about subordinate clauses. I offered it a cup of tea, but it declined, preferring to sip from a mug labelled “Syntax Rules.”

Just as I reached for my pen again, my favourite noun—“dog”—marched in, waving a placard: “ON STRIKE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.” 

Apparently, it was tired of being objectified. “No more being whistled at, told to fetch things, or be described as ‘fluffy’,” it declared, before storming off to join the other disgruntled nouns in the garden, where they were picketing the verbs.

Undeterred, I pressed on, determined to finish my letter, when suddenly, something caught my eye. 

There, dangling precariously from the curtain rail, was a participle. “Running late, the bus was missed by me,” it wailed, swinging back and forth. I tried to coax it down, but it just dangled there, making my sentence look ridiculous.

The semicolon, now wrapped in its dressing gown like a judge’s robes, looked on disapprovingly. “You really ought to fix that,” it sniffed. “It’s unsightly.”

I tried to reason with the participle, but it just dangled more. The noun, meanwhile, was leading a chant outside: “No justice, no subject!”

In the end, I gave up. I wrote, “Dear Editor, I hope this letter finds you well; but if it doesn’t, blame the semicolon in the dressing gown, the noun on strike, and the participle dangling from the curtain rail.”

The editor will understand. Editors know about grammar and its moods.

And so, dear reader, if you find yourself beset by pedantic punctuation, rebellious nouns, or acrobatic participles, take heart. You are not alone. The rules of grammar may be many, but the ways to break them are infinite—and far more fun.