Reading Response 10

In his article "Good English and Bad," Bill Bryson explains the complexity of the English language and how can confusing it gets sometimes because of it's 'rules'. He argues that these rules have little bases to support them because "considerations of what makes for good English or bad English are to an uncomfortably large extent matters of prejudice and conditioning" (65). This basically means that the way we write in English is due to someone's idea of how it should be done.

This article reminded me of Stuart Greene's "Argument as a Conversation" because it explains the conversation that's being going on for years about grammar and it's rules, how they've been changing along the years and how writers have adapted to them.

BEFORE YOU READ

I spent six years studying English as a second language. During this period of time, I learnt about English grammar and the rules of English. It's is different than Spanish which is my first language because it's simpler in many ways. However, that simplicity may sometimes make it more confusing and  complex than I thought I would be, specially when it comes to formulate conditional sentences.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND JOURNALING

1. Bryson is challenging the construct of grammar by pointing out examples of how it makes writing more complicated than it should be. For example, "the belief that we must say different from rather than different to or different than" (64).

APPLYING AND EXPLORING IDEAS

2. I think that what he means by saying that English is a fluid and democratic language is that you can say different things using the same words. For instance "a noun is generally said to be a word that denotes a person, place, thing action, or quality" (61).

META MOMENT

Noun. Verb. Adjetive. Adverb. Pronoun. I learnt how to use them for Spanish when I was in primary school and in high school. In high school I also learnt how to use them in English. When I write, I don't think about them. I think we do it automatically because language is a part of who we are so it comes naturally.


When I was reading the article I started to think about how I was told by a few people that my English was better than theirs. Although they say it as a compliment or a joke, I think it's because since I learnt it as a second language, my English was always well-grammarly-structured and not influenced by the social context.