Reading Response 10 (Bryson)

Bryson – “Good English and Bad”

Summary

In his article, “Good English and Bad,” Bryson attempts to show how the “rules” for the English language are not only convoluted, but straight up wrong or nonexistent. He argues that many of the “rules” have become so confused that many different rules are there from confusion or no reason at all. He doesn’t feel that to have a rule just for the sake of the rule is a good enough reason to use sloppy or inelegant grammar.

Synthesis

This text is similar to many of our texts, picking a construct to challenge and then proving its point. However, it is like many of the shorter works by having a sort of commentary in the background, a little bit of dry humor to keep the reader awake. The author uses examples that are simple yet get the point across in the most effective way, similar to many of the pieces that are directed to students, yet this article is approachable by many different people of different mindsets.

Pre-reading

Good English is a very loose term to apply to anything with so varied a basis. Good grammar is something to strive for, but not entirely necessary. Sometimes context is more important than grammar, especially in speech. I personally will use improper grammar to make a point or to be funny (i.e. pronouncing words as they are spelled with phonics as well as combining words to make a new word).

QD

1. Bryson is challenging the writing construct of grammar rules, show by his many examples of where rules contradict each other. He points out how flexible and democratic the English language, going into a brief history of how academics throughout history have tried to revise the rules to make them simpler, but they constantly make it worse. He gives purely grammatical examples that show where the standing rules are deficient to help prove his point.

A&E

2. Bryson means that whatever we want the English language to do, it does. Throughout history, meanings, spellings, pronunciations, and “rules” have changed at the whim of a popular scholar. Personally, I’ve seen commas rules taught four different ways throughout my schooling career, none of which my parents or siblings were taught. Teacher to teacher, scholar to scholar, each rule has a varying level of importance, with some getting bent or broken frequently by one, but being invulnerable by another.

MM

Some parts of speech are noun, verb, adverb, pronoun, ect. I learned how they all relate in school, a long time ago. Most of it is ingrained into my subconscious mind, so I do it instinctively, most of the time. I do not think about it at all when I write, I think about translating my thoughts to words, and they magically appear in a relatively correct grammatical format, if I’m lucky. It may help me write better if I knew grammar better, because I could fall back on it to try mixing up my sentence structure, but not very much.

Thoughts

This piece was much more interesting than many of the others we’ve read recently, mainly because of the more down to earth vocabulary as well as descriptive and understandable examples. They were relatable with my own experiences with the language, indeed they were relatable to just about anyone. This made it much more interesting to read.