Someone recently commented to me that I failed to use punctuation. When they said this I thought to myself:
Thank God for small miracles. What they might have said was: You use punctuation differently than I do. If they had thought about it a bit more, they might have said: Your use of punctuation differs from the norm. All true, but then, I don't think this entire blog is about, norm.
If you heard me read aloud what I write, you would be able to follow along and accept my punctuation. If you knew me at all you would understand that my use of punctuation is absolutely correct and that your use of punctuation is for you, not me. Sometimes I fail to correctly write things, and will re-read something later and see a glaring mistake, but my punctuation is mine.
That said, I have absolutely no memory of learning or being taught punctuation. I know what a noun is and I can identify one left and right, but anything else requires me to use a dictionary. What is punctuation? A bunch of symbols designed to help a reader understand. Understand what? If I handed you a book on quantum physics, punctuation intact, you probably still couldn't figure it out. So punctuation is not always a helpful thing.
Recently when talking with a woman my age, without prompting from me, she said the exact same thing as I have written above. She said: I have no clue what a verb is or a noun. We were never taught that in school. This woman is writing a book. I write a blog. When I heard this I immediately asked about her primary schooling and lo and behold she had attended experimental schools such as I had. She continued as an adult by attending Goddard - a self directed school whereas I had attended Vermont College another self directed school who had purchased the right to copy Goddard's structure. Both of us had never learned punctuation and we seem quite happy and content not worrying about past tense particles. I think that's what they're called...
What the hell kind of school did I go to that didn't teach punctuation? A mighty fine school(s) if you ask me. The thought was that punctuation inhibits people from being creative. That while it may be seen as a structure of sorts, a guide to the reader, how it is used should be to support and emphasize the writer so that he or she can convey to his or her reader where you, the reader, are to be taken.
As a reader you have to follow me, the writer. Or, you can say: I hate this broad, she uses too many commas, or not enough periods. If you want to see someone use commas like a madman, read the works of James Baldwin. If you never want to see one again as you are reading, because you've given them up for lent, or something, read Faulkner. If you really want to go mad, read Joyce's Ulysses and edit it yourself.
Here is a short breakdown of what a few English teachers have said to me:
"If you can find it in print published that way, then do it yourself."
"We don't use red pens to correct anymore and we don't write on your work to give correction as it is too psychologically intimidating. Instead we write our own response to your work on a separate piece of paper".
"That took guts," in response to my having written a term paper in the voice and language of Huckleberry Finn.
If there is one thing I learned in school it's that teachers are bored to tears with conformity. They get paper after paper of the same old shit as last year and the reason for that, I am positive, is because most people go to schools where mimicking and the regurgitation of what is taught is a sign of success. Individuality is not taught in most school. That's something, if you are lucky, you will have to figure out on your own time. A man, who attended the same schools as I, once lamented: I received the best education one could ever hope to receive and it has left me with no one to talk to.
Once you've been let out of the box two things happen. One is that you see things always from another perspective and, and two, you'll find that most people are still in the box. It's hard to relate when you don't see the same thing. And when you make nice, simply to relate to people in boxes, you find yourself even more up in arms. You, the one outside the box, can always see what's inside the box, but those in the box can never see what's outside the box.
There are languages that don't use punctuation and other languages where sentences have no space between words sothingslooklikethisandmightbedifficultforyoutofigureout. Are we to say that they are doing something wrong? Or can we slide slowly into the fact that there are different ways of doing things that possibly don't detract from what we are doing, but rather add another layer?
In most creative writing courses, good ones, you are encouraged to let go of punctuation. Some demand it. Toni Morrison writes in longhand, others write in shorthand. Some can only write on a typewriter that makes a racket, while others still can't write a word until a particular pen or pencil is at hand and a particular type of paper is in place. The best of writers have editors to deal with comma trauma.
My point in all of this is that punctuation evolves. What was once a hard and fast rule is no longer that hard or fast. Languages that never used punctuation, Arabic, now has dropped a few new rules into how it is written, but those new rules, I would bet, have not been adopted by those who have been doing without for most of their lives, and I would further surmise that people still know what they have intended. I think punctuation police are more interested in conformity, as they may once have been forced to oblige themselves, than any real notion or vested interest in the upkeep or longevity, after their demise, of the semi-colon.
Thank God for small miracles. What they might have said was: You use punctuation differently than I do. If they had thought about it a bit more, they might have said: Your use of punctuation differs from the norm. All true, but then, I don't think this entire blog is about, norm.
If you heard me read aloud what I write, you would be able to follow along and accept my punctuation. If you knew me at all you would understand that my use of punctuation is absolutely correct and that your use of punctuation is for you, not me. Sometimes I fail to correctly write things, and will re-read something later and see a glaring mistake, but my punctuation is mine.
That said, I have absolutely no memory of learning or being taught punctuation. I know what a noun is and I can identify one left and right, but anything else requires me to use a dictionary. What is punctuation? A bunch of symbols designed to help a reader understand. Understand what? If I handed you a book on quantum physics, punctuation intact, you probably still couldn't figure it out. So punctuation is not always a helpful thing.
Recently when talking with a woman my age, without prompting from me, she said the exact same thing as I have written above. She said: I have no clue what a verb is or a noun. We were never taught that in school. This woman is writing a book. I write a blog. When I heard this I immediately asked about her primary schooling and lo and behold she had attended experimental schools such as I had. She continued as an adult by attending Goddard - a self directed school whereas I had attended Vermont College another self directed school who had purchased the right to copy Goddard's structure. Both of us had never learned punctuation and we seem quite happy and content not worrying about past tense particles. I think that's what they're called...
What the hell kind of school did I go to that didn't teach punctuation? A mighty fine school(s) if you ask me. The thought was that punctuation inhibits people from being creative. That while it may be seen as a structure of sorts, a guide to the reader, how it is used should be to support and emphasize the writer so that he or she can convey to his or her reader where you, the reader, are to be taken.
As a reader you have to follow me, the writer. Or, you can say: I hate this broad, she uses too many commas, or not enough periods. If you want to see someone use commas like a madman, read the works of James Baldwin. If you never want to see one again as you are reading, because you've given them up for lent, or something, read Faulkner. If you really want to go mad, read Joyce's Ulysses and edit it yourself.
Here is a short breakdown of what a few English teachers have said to me:
"If you can find it in print published that way, then do it yourself."
"We don't use red pens to correct anymore and we don't write on your work to give correction as it is too psychologically intimidating. Instead we write our own response to your work on a separate piece of paper".
"That took guts," in response to my having written a term paper in the voice and language of Huckleberry Finn.
If there is one thing I learned in school it's that teachers are bored to tears with conformity. They get paper after paper of the same old shit as last year and the reason for that, I am positive, is because most people go to schools where mimicking and the regurgitation of what is taught is a sign of success. Individuality is not taught in most school. That's something, if you are lucky, you will have to figure out on your own time. A man, who attended the same schools as I, once lamented: I received the best education one could ever hope to receive and it has left me with no one to talk to.
Once you've been let out of the box two things happen. One is that you see things always from another perspective and, and two, you'll find that most people are still in the box. It's hard to relate when you don't see the same thing. And when you make nice, simply to relate to people in boxes, you find yourself even more up in arms. You, the one outside the box, can always see what's inside the box, but those in the box can never see what's outside the box.
There are languages that don't use punctuation and other languages where sentences have no space between words sothingslooklikethisandmightbedifficultforyoutofigureout. Are we to say that they are doing something wrong? Or can we slide slowly into the fact that there are different ways of doing things that possibly don't detract from what we are doing, but rather add another layer?
In most creative writing courses, good ones, you are encouraged to let go of punctuation. Some demand it. Toni Morrison writes in longhand, others write in shorthand. Some can only write on a typewriter that makes a racket, while others still can't write a word until a particular pen or pencil is at hand and a particular type of paper is in place. The best of writers have editors to deal with comma trauma.
My point in all of this is that punctuation evolves. What was once a hard and fast rule is no longer that hard or fast. Languages that never used punctuation, Arabic, now has dropped a few new rules into how it is written, but those new rules, I would bet, have not been adopted by those who have been doing without for most of their lives, and I would further surmise that people still know what they have intended. I think punctuation police are more interested in conformity, as they may once have been forced to oblige themselves, than any real notion or vested interest in the upkeep or longevity, after their demise, of the semi-colon.
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