“Which Is to Be Master?”

Humpty Dumpty saw language issues clearly. In his hilarious—but keenly insightful—exchange with Alice about the unruly nature of meaning and the difficulty most of us have in truly controlling the language we use, he concludes by asking, “Which is to be master?” Humpty Dumpty’s rhetorical flourish is hardly a rhetorical question, for precise English is no one’s native language. We must earn whatever mastery we demonstrate in writing effectively. Lest romantic egalitarianism persuade us that grammar must now be descriptive instead of prescriptive, that expecting students to speak and write what has traditionally been called Received Standard English is at least un-American (and maybe illegal), I would urge an unblinking look at the options we force on those we treat so permissively.

I am a bit weary of hearing that requiring students to write complete sentences and use reasonably consistent punctuation may inhibit their creativity—as if the creative were merely the ejaculatory. Discipline has always been the hallmark of the truly imaginative, and discipline is as evident in good free verse as it is in the limpid prose of a Thoreau or a Chesterton. If I lack the tools and training to describe an experience with discernment, if I am reduced to writing “It was a great sunset, all red and, and—well, you know what I mean,” I confess not only linguistic limitations, but a gross response as well. On the other hand, if I try to decorate rather than discriminate, and I write something like the “roseate concatenation of hues which arched through the vault of the heavens,” I am, in the felicitous phrasing of Stephen Leacock, attaching ribbons to a beggar’s coat.

Even poor writing requires some effort, and good writing is as demanding as it is rewarding. But we must play by accepted rules if we hope to share what we write. As a teacher of freshman English, I was vaguely ill at ease in my role as comma catcher, rounding up the stray sentence fragments and corralling dangling modifiers. In my zeal to be helpful I identified, in emphatic red ink, every error, every ambiguity, and every deviation from a prescribed format. One time, as I returned the folded papers, the red ink showed through in most cases, but in one paper I had obviously written more in correction than the student had submitted as his part of the exercise. When I passed this paper back, the student—seeing the massive corrections—said despairingly, “Oh hell, bled to death again!”

From this and similar experiences, I did learn to focus on critical problems, lest my comments and corrections be simply crushing. Nevertheless, I have not been tempted to ease the frustration of teaching effective writing by defining my problems out of existence. Indulgence is only thinly disguised contempt. The legalization of marijuana is a desperate approach to drug abuse, and justifying incoherence and solipsism is just as desperate an approach to the abuse of language. If we would free our students from the jail of their deprivations, we must help them understand that linguistic skill is a passkey. No recommendation to professional school can counter the capsizing weight of one’s own inept statement. A consoling letter, a persuasive application, a crisp analysis—all are effective not because they can be understood but because they cannot be misunderstood.

Clarity is the hallmark of good prose; clarity is the test of writing proficiency. In the intricate decision-making that precedes putting words on paper effectively, we integrate form, content, and style. That integration is both arrestingly individual and reassuringly universal.