Welcome to Grammaphile!
For as long as I can remember, I have loved language. As a kid, I carried stacks of books home from the library that seemed to weigh as much as I did. As a teenager, I wrote awful (really, really awful) poetry and stories, imagining that one day I would be a famous writer. In my twenties, I decided to major in English, and thought I had a pretty good grasp of grammar, punctuation, literature and writing.
That is, until I married an English teacher, who suddenly began asking me about conjunctions, sentence types, comma usage, literary genres and essay writing. As it turned out, I knew how to write and what made text grammatically correct, but I had no idea what any of the parts of language were, what the actual rules of grammar were or how to explain what makes a sentence good or bad. I had learned the basics in grade school and high school, and then promptly forgot everything beyond being to differentiate between nouns, verbs and adjectives.
So began this project, to create articles and lessons on grammar, punctuation, writing and other sticky language subjects, not just to teach others, but also to re-teach myself. I started with what my husband was trying to teach his high school students – sentence structure, writing paragraphs and topic sentences, proper citation, etc. – and added topics that I see in my professional life – active vs. passive voice, proper email structure, writing for the web – to create this site.
I hope you find this information educational, enlightening and enjoyable.
Thanks for joining me!
The greater part of the world’s troubles are due to questions of grammar. — Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays
Grammaphile 