Learning The Rules Of The Game

I remember very clearly the moment I suddenly realized how the rules of grammar really worked. I was in the fifth grade, and while I don’t remember my teacher’s name, her face I can see quite clearly. Sandy blonde highlighted hair, large stylish glasses whose shade darkened or lightened according to the sunlight in the room. She is the teacher who first taught me how to diagram a sentence, which I seem to remember enjoying-- contrary to other, normal children.

image: Tina Urso McDaniel

I’ve always enjoyed the structure of grammar. The idea that this floaty noise of communication that whirled around us all day long could be grabbed from the air, examined, broken down, studied, and given meaning was and has continued to be fascinating to me. The diagrammed sentence seemed to me the ultimate pleasing evidence of this. I was actually a bit sad to learn that adult life seemed to have no place for this grammarly practice. Put this sentence next to this other sentence, mark them up with lines; suddenly the patterns of language are perfectly clear, predictable, and reproducible. Grammar was like that all over, especially for English, that absurd melder and appropriator of linguistic nations. Even the exceptions that seemed without rules had rules. I before e, except after c... The chaos of language could remain so and yet be made orderly at the same time. Absolute heaven for a whirling, observant mind like mine.

And so while I loved the tidy rules and order of trying to put everything into it’s sensical place, I delighted even more whenever and wherever I could find exceptions to the rules that I could question and pick apart. Why does this thing that supposedly counts as following the rules doesn’t follow any of the previously stated rules? There must be another secret or unrevealed rule lurking to be discovered. Especially in fifth grade, the possibilities seemed endless. Which is why, probably of no surprise to my teacher, I walked into class one day with a perfectly fabulous and disruptive question.

We had been learning all about clauses. One specific rule in particular didn’t quite sit right, though I couldn’t figure out why. At home, reading some great new book, I had the beginnings of an answer. aHA! I pointed to the text on the page, look right there! A sentence that begins with the word “because”! We had learned in class that was strictly forbidden. It wasn’t an error; this particular writer seemed to start sentences like this quite a bit. I couldn’t wait to get to class, show my teacher. I knew if it was in a book, it should be right, maybe even more right than my teacher. But of course teachers were also supposed to be right. At this age in particular, I relished these sorts of paradoxes. They always made adults uncomfortable. And almost always ended up with learning what felt like were more of the real truths of the world, since they were things I had discovered through my very own observation.

When I got to class, I marched right up to her desk and showed her the sentence in my book. At first, she tried a simplistic answer she probably already knew I wasn’t going to go for, but I was having none of it. I pointed out the multiple occurrences in the book, the fact that these sentences sounded perfectly normal, the illustrious name of the author in question. She sighed, and then did something unexpected. Lowering her voice, so that only I could hear, she decided to speak to me as an equal. This was of course very exciting.

“Well,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “the rules are actually more complicated, but we have to teach them this way to you in school, one step at a time, because that makes things easier to learn.” My eyes widened. I had in the back of my mind always suspected such things might be true, but I could hardly believe a teacher, an adult, was actually admitting this to me. And in confidence! I felt very smart and grown up to have been trusted with such information. She also further explained something about authors of books which I don’t remember exactly but was something along the lines of, when you’re a published author, the rules are also different. Which I’m sure in no small part helped along my burgeoning interest in becoming a writer myself. I stopped and took in all this new and exciting information. She knew she had given me something big, and I could see she expected something in return.

“Now,” she said in a deal-making tone, “Can we agree that for now in class, we will not start our sentences with clauses?” I happily agreed. Following the rules because you had to and following rules because you understood that doing so was necessary for the balance of the world order were two very different things indeed. I felt so responsible. I would continue on in this penny-ante elementary school sentence structure for the sake of the educational system at large, but she and I knew somewhere out there was a much larger, wider world full of complicated rules that all my classmates here couldn’t even begin to imagine. Yes, that woman was a true professional.