Embed from Getty Images

My first blog, The Daily Aneursym, existed from 2003 through 2006. I still think some of the best writing I ever did was at that site, even though it had only about a half-dozen regular readers. From approximately 2003 through sometime in 2009, I also contributed to a political blog called Best of the Blogs. It no longer exists, but I found an online archive of posts a while back, and killed most of a day reading through it. Most of my stuff there was highly topical (for example, lots of detailed inside baseball about the 2008 presidential campaign, from the early primary process through Election Night), but I found one piece that might be of interest a decade later. It’s got nothing to do with the usual run of stuff around here, so read it if you want, or don’t.

I am a freelance educational writer by trade. The other morning, while working on grammar lessons, I was doing a bit of research online when I came across a homeschooling site that included the following explanation of why studying grammar is necessary for Christians:

God has created and is sovereign over all things. He not only has a plan for your life, but for the life of your country. His plans are not overturn by any person or thing. Nothing is more powerful than Him. Yet, He created all things totally unique and were created with a purpose that He will cause to bring about. By changing a word suffix, for example, the word can either be a noun, verb, adjective or adverb meeting the need of an author or speaker. The types of sentences — exclamatory, declarative, imperative, and interogatory — also reflect, to a small degree, our Lord’s comprehensiveness at meeting our need to communicate with others.

Be thou not churlish about the errant participle “overturn” in the third sentence above. Neither shalt thou giggle at the pronoun trouble and awkward construction in the fifth sentence.

An understanding of grammar assists the Christian in helping to protect and defend the weak and helpless (e.g., the unborn, babies, children, the agéd, infirm, mentally ill, etc.). It is essential in helping to secure justice for those that have been civilly and/or criminally wronged. George Mason’s Bill of Rights and Patrick Henry’s Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death speech are good examples of working to ensure God’s Law-Word remain in the civil laws of a nation. These important works, however, would not be possible without learning how grammar applies to sentences, essays, papers, documents, laws, etc. Grammar helps Christians by securing laws to protect private property of the poor, humble, and middle class from those that push redistribution of wealth schemes, socialism, fascism, etc.

Translation: Concentrateth not on the grammatical motes in our own eyes (incorrect usage of “that” rather than “who” not only in the second and fifth sentences above but throughout the entire site, awkward construction and incorrect verb tense in the third sentence, or two uses of “etc.” instead of “and so on”), lest it cause us to ignore the political planks in the eyes of others, for verily, those planks are far more important to Jesus.

Or as it is written: In all things, keep thine eye on the ball.

A friend with whom I shared this observation writes:

Of course, God works only in English. The world’s plethora of languages that do not following anything remotely similar to the English grammatical system are of the devil, because they do not conform to God’s laws, but attempt to create their own laws. Because, you see, God is an American.

I give up. These people are crazy.

Here endeth the lesson.