Grammar Geeks

response to someone who was concerned about being perceived as a grammar geek because of her going to a copy editor's seminar:

"Personally I find nothing odd about this, and actually wish that the world was filled with grammar nerds. We do, to a large extent, perceive our world through our grammar. Musicians are a special lot, because they also have at their disposal the tonal scales and their infinities with which to feel the world. However, those with only verbal tools are limited by the structure of their tongue. That is why I hold correct grammar, epistemology, general semantics, NLP, and the Philosophy of Consciousnes w/out an object as being so vital. English, despite the ethereal beauty that it can be used to express, is a pathetic language for thinking about Reality. Its very structure and assumptions blind one to the obvious."

Anyone who has two or more languages, especially if they are, in our case, non Indo-European languages, perceives quite clearly that the structure and feel of experience is different through a different filter of grammar and vocabulary. One case comes to mind where a friend saw her sister, back from a mission assignment of a few years duration, speaking Portugese. She said "I was shocked: she was a different person altogether!"

Further to this, I was delighted to read in a story by Robert Heinlein that in English "'I' is the only form of the verb 'to be' that is true to fact." This is so, and is at the root of HUGE misunderstandings and mistranslations of sacred texts from the East and Middle East in particular. The sense of personal responsibility as confessed in the article on Ho'oponopono farther down the page is more like what I (lol) would consider accurate.

In fact, entire systems of experience, understanding, and expression are based on this different understanding of the word "I." The renowned Canadian Philosopher/Poet/Rennaisance man Kenneth G. Mills prefaced each of his books with an explicatory note regarding his use of the words "I," "me," and "you." Such a note is worth reading, especially if you are a musician.