Grammar is the glue that holds a language together, as politics is the glue that holds a country together. It’s through these unified rules that we build our future culture.
If we are to take part in building our future culture, we should have a strong understanding of our past. Thus we start our exploration into grammar and politics with the document that started our American way of life and find a grammatical error in the first sentence.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” ~Constitution of the United States of America.
Can a Grammar Guide be “More Perfect?”
The first sentence of The U.S. constitution contains what appears to be a grammatical error. When the published copy of the Constitution was hung up for the world to see. The union of politics and words became further interlinked.
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Constitution, used “more perfect” and sparked the literary mind. A debate over his use of grammar is still waged to this day.
One school of thought offers perfect is total unison. Nothing could ever be “more perfect”. To be “more perfect” would mean whatever was perfect, was never perfect until the point that it was perfect.
Another school of thought offers “more perfect” is correct grammar as perfect is an exaggerated word. Nothing is ever perfect and the sense of entitlement to use perfect invites the use of “more perfect”.
No matter which school of thought you fall into, we learn about the nature of grammar from our constitution. The laws and rules of grammar are debated, changed, and tangible. A writer must understand why he uses one word or another, as a politician must understand why he votes for one bill or another.
Grammar Guides are English Law?
When a writer goes to print, his job is to defend his word. When a Politician goes to vote, his job is to defend his vote. If a writer’s grammar is weak, he will look like a fool to the literary world. If a Politician is uninformed, he will look like a fool to the televised public. We can see many places were the life of a politician and a writer have intertwined skill sets.
Grammar has politics of its own. One filled with strange rules and amendments. In the beginning, there was “I Am.”. The prefect sentence with a noun and an action. I, the noun, states a person place or thing and am, an action, denotes a state of existing. “I am” means I exist, only with less letters.
The job for a writer is then to explain themselves in a way that pays tribute to the first sentence. And they pay tribute in different ways. Hemingway was known for his understated use of words, while Twain offered verbose alternatives to “I Am.” Both authors are debated and they both could defend their use of words. They knew the politics of words.
In the coming installments, we shall explore the politics of words. No system is free from politics. Free-Will leads to interaction and inevitably to politics. Politics are the process by which people choose to make decisions. Similarly, grammar is the process by which people choose to communicate.
Grammar and Politics are subjective and we all fear the day when acronyms like “TTYL” and “LOL” find their way into our spell check as the day when a politician’s abuse of our freedoms finds its way into our law. How would such a change occur? Through the debate of people who understand the subtle nuances and it’s high time for us to join the debate.
Politics of Words Map
Join us next time in: Vulgar Communication,
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Or : “Politics of Words Table of Contents”.
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