It's all that matters

There have been a few instances in the past week or so that have brought me back to a basic discussion I had in 1986 while working at the College for Financial Planning in Denver as a writer. Back during the "ME Generation" I was having this discussion with an editor, who had taken it upon herself not only to correct my copy, but give me a lesson in grammar to boot.

At the ripe old age of --- let's just say REALLY young, I was annoyed by this woman's insistance that she not only reprimand me for causing her to (in my opinion) do her job and "fix my stuff," but she also felt the need to teach me about dangling participles, split infinitives and run on sentences.

"I never really did learn my grammar real well. It's a creative process for me. I write naturally by putting a comma in where it sounds like you need a pause. 90 percent of the time it works," I had said with a classic "I'm 22 and you can't tell me anything, ya old hag," attitude.

My editor had looked at me with a mixture of amazement and pure hatred. "A world without grammar is a world without order. It's essential to the very foundation of our language. In a sense, it's the only thing that's really important," she had said, before waddling back into her cubicle and her collection of grammar books.

"Whatever," I had replied before retreating to my office to begin work on draft 12 of my current project, which I recall had started to be really annoying.

Flash forward 20 plus years and I find myself in a similar situation. I've written a 600 word article for national distribution, constructed a hypothesis, researched the topic, crafted a nice story that was actually interesting to read, and when my client reviews it his only comment was, "Please upper case the VP's title."

Now the title had been down-cased by the editor at the wire service, so to have the VP ask, via the marketing kid, to change it back cracked me up.

"So I swiveled in my chair and pulled my Associated Press Style Book off the shelf. I don't have to use it often, but it's always comforting to know it's there. I opened the AP Style Book and looked up TITLES.

"Lower case unless it's the Pope or President and it comes before their name." AP had spoken.

So I picked up the phone, called the marketing kid, and told him we couldn't upper case his title.

"It's the rule. It's the way it has to be," I had said.

"Rules are meant to be broken," he had snapped back.

"Grammar is the very foundation of our language, you can't break the rules. In some ways its the only thing that really matters," I heard someone who looks like a more wrinkled version of me say.

"What are you talking about?" my young client had asked with a bit of a snivel and "here she goes again" attitude in his voice.

"I'm talking about rules that you can't break. Grammar. AP Style. It's like the law in my business. You just can't mess with it."

"That's a drag," he had said, before adding, "I always just stick the comma where it sounds like it belongs."

I felt a chill run up my spine. The call ended and suddenly week-kneed I half limped half waddled back to my desk, put my AP Style Book in its revered spot on the crowded shelf, sat down, and said a little prayer for the next generation. Hopefully it will all work out.