A first grammar experience

As a ninth grader at South Hills Middle School, I, like all of my classmates, had to prepare a project for the annual science fair. Now I had participated in my share of science fairs and usually did pretty well. This year was no exception. After all, with my impressive display board, extensive researching and surveying and—no joke—food samples, how could I go wrong? I even made it up a couple rounds and got to bring my project to display at some sort of regional fair at BYU. (Today, I have no idea where on campus this science fair took place but I’m suspecting it was in one of those buildings that, well, actually focus on the sciences.…I didn’t spend much time in those.)

I don’t recall this experience for any sort of pompous motive. (Although a somewhat recent run-in with a classmate still recalled that I beat him out for first place at the science fair.) As impressive as that accomplishment is, the success in this science fair is not what I most frequently remember. Instead, my memories focus on the grammar.

Yep, although it was a science fair and I had quite a time experimenting about the connection between sight and taste, I have planted this experience in mind as the point where I first became concerned with the differences of “affect” and “effect.”

You see, while working on my display board during my first period science class, my teacher informed me that I had selected the wrong word for my title: "Does Sight Affect Taste?" I probably didn't know better, said OK and later printed out the other word to use. In class the next day, my teacher changed her mind and said she thought I had it right the first time. And she changed her mind at least a couple times more. (Today there is no question in my mind which is correct, but I have no idea which I started with or which I ended up using...I'm hoping it was the correct one. Looking back, maybe that's why I didn't advance after the regional round...)

In 9th grade, I had no experience with the fascinating grammar books I now routinely read. I knew "affect" and "effect" were commonly confused, but no one was really offering me any help to figure it out.

For the record:
affect: verb, indicating a relationship between two parts; to act upon or influence
effect: noun, a change; an outcome; something brought about by a cause

I think I've been pretty open about my grammar style and my take on those commonly termed "grammar snobs." As an editor, I constantly face the stereotype of a gloating editor dedicated to finding errors everywhere around her.

"Another editor. That thing behind his ear is his pencil. Whenever he finds a bright thing in your manuscript he strikes it out with that. That does him good and makes him smile and show his teeth, the way he is doing in the picture. This one has just been striking out a smart thing, and now he is sitting there with his thumbs in his vest-holes, gloating. They are full of envy and malice, editors are."
Picture and quote from "How to Make History Dates Stick," by Mark Twain

Any who know me or chat with me online could quickly see that I’m not quite that…intense.

I don’t question why not every one knows random things like capitalizing page with one number, but not multiple (Page 2, pages 3-7). And I'm OK that some people don't quite understand capitalization...that school subjects are not capitalized. (English, Spanish, French, etc. are languages.) I know commas can be confusing. (Even though we’ve all been dealing with them for who knows how long.) And I’ve participated in discussion after discussion in educational circles about the spiraling downward emphasis on grammar in schools.

All in all, I do think knowing and understanding grammar is important. But, honestly, I’m not sure if some teachers should be teaching kids anything about grammar. In fact, I think most of the confusion that high school and college students face concerning grammar can all stem back to incorrect and inconsistent methods taught by teachers who were confused themselves about the material.

How many of us can remember learning to do something one way only to have it corrected later? (I remember being taught in 1st grade to always capitalize the word “island.”)