The DU Lounge

Shakespeare wrote his plays in Elizabethan English, which uses different grammar and spelling than modern English language. In order to fully grasp Shakespeare’s words, students and teachers must dedicate a substantial amount of time and effort to deciphering his language and its context. There’s no reason teachers should waste valuable class time translating outdated dialects.

Defenders of our antiquated grammar system sometimes claim that formal grammar instruction gradually builds a “grand synthesis” in our brains. Suddenly we grasp how the disparate elements of grammar work together to create meaning.

There’s some truth here: we need that “grand synthesis” in order to use English effectively. I’m using it to write this article. But all of us built that “grand synthesis” ourselves in early childhood. By the time we entered first grade, most of us knew how to use the elements of grammar in an amazing variety of ways.

Harvard professor Steven Pinker explains that “The complexity of language, from the scientist’s point of view, is part of our biological birthright; it is not something that parents teach their children or something that must be elaborated in school”