In honor of National Grammar Day…

…which was March 4th, here is an article by Ben Yagoda, author of How to Not Write Bad: The Most Common Writing Errors and the Best Ways to Avoid Them, that is a writer’s equivalent of the Emancipation Proclamation. Well… sort of. To wit: 7 supposed grammatical ‘rules’ you don’t have to follow:

1. Don’t split infinitives

2. Don’t end a sentence with a preposition

3. Don’t use “which” as a relative pronoun

4. Don’t start a sentence with a conjunction

5. Don’t use the passive voice

6. Don’t neglect to use singular verbs

7. Don’t use words to mean what they’ve been widely used to mean for 50 years or more

Okay, maybe 6 points. No screenwriter should ever use passive voice, unless it’s in dialogue where a character chooses to use the passive voice. But the other 6 seem right on. I’m especially pleased with #4. Here is Yagoda’s commentary on that:

Except possibly in the most formal settings, there is absolutely nothing wrong with starting a sentence with And or But. A funny thing about the supposed rule against doing so is that no one has been able to find a book or authority that has ever endorsed it (with the exception of a single 1868 text turned up by the scholar Dennis Baron). But countless people feel this is unacceptable, possibly because the notion was pounded into their head by some middle school grammar teacher. Get over it!

So take that, Mrs. Houck, my cross-eyed, shrew of a 5th grade teacher! I don’t have to listen to your yammering in my head on this particular point any more. And! But! But! And! Bwahahaha! Doesn’t it feel great to spread your conjunctive wings and fly?

To read more of Yagoda’s musings, you can go to his site here.

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