Dr. V writes:
Hey Wokester!
You won't teach your students grammar, but you will 'teach' them the 'right' pronouns?
The irony is that Dr. V forgot his vocative comma ("Hey, Wokester!"). Or maybe that's not ironic: forgetting a comma might be considered a mechanics error, not a grammatical one.*
Then again, some errors straddle categories. If you forget a comma in an if-conditional sentence, for example, that could be construed as both a mechanical and a grammatical error.
BAD: If you do that again I'll kill you.
GUD: If you do that again, I'll kill you.
GUD: If you do that again, I'll kill you.
__________
*Grammar has to do with things like sentence structure, verb conjugation, etc. Mechanics has to do with spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. Diction has to do with word choice, and style has to do with near-intangibles like the register you write in (formal/informal), etc.
I guess I've always thought of it as more mechanical than grammatical, although I can see the argument for both sides.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right to think of the error as more mechanical.
ReplyDelete