When I was the editor of the student newspaper at Johns Hopkins in 1993, I got hold of an amusing letter that another campus publication was sending out to local businesses. That publication’s editor was trying to solicit ads for its upcoming issues. Only the editor made an egregious spelling error: he was soliciting adds. Would you like to buy an add in our magazine? We have good prices for our adds. Your add is important to us.
This raises an important question for writers, one that speaks to the entire purpose of human society altogether. Why are proper spelling, punctuation and grammar important?
The Incomprehensible Layer of Language
The knee-jerk response to this question is that we can’t communicate efficiently without proper orthography. (For those who missed the class on Important Multisyllabic Words, Wikipedia defines orthography as “the set of symbols… used to write a language, as well as the set of rules describing how to write these glyphs correctly.”)
There is some truth to the idea that orthography equals communication. English speakers have tacitly agreed on a set of symbols (the Roman alphabet) and a set of common pronunciation guidelines for these symbols. If everyone simply abandoned this system and communicated however they felt like at the moment, obviously we wouldn’t get very far.
Once we’ve covered the basic descriptive rules of written language, however, there’s still a lot of wiggle room. There’s an entire layer of spelling, punctuation and grammar rules that makes little sense and serves no objective purpose. Why do we use the letter “c” at all when we could easily substitute either “k” or “s”? Why are through, cough, rough and plough all pronounced differently? Why does “i” come before “e” except after “c”? Our language is riddled with inconsistencies, one-off rules, backwards logic and just plain lunacy.
Spend five minutes looking at these Byzantine rules of the English language, and you’ll very quickly realize that communication has nothing to do with things at this level. Taking the example of the editor selling adds, we clearly know what he was trying to communicate, despite his lack of linguistic correctness.
We see that our hapless student editor was not guilty of miscommunication at all. He was simply ignorant of a largely superfluous layer of rules and regulations. So why do we have these rules in the first place?
The Societal Purpose of Windsor Knots
Sometimes I think of orthography as similar to the act of tying a necktie.
Why does society call an individual wearing a tie a “properly dressed” individual? There’s very little practical use for a necktie — it doesn’t keep you warm, it doesn’t make you more comfortable, it doesn’t really provide a large enough space for making a fashion statement.
The answer turns out to be somewhat self-reflective. Society values men wearing properly tied neckties because by doing so they demonstrate that they care enough to learn how to properly tie a necktie. Any slob can throw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with a minimum amount of attention or preparation. But it takes time, knowledge, care and attention to learn how to make a proper Windsor knot. If you didn’t care about the rules of society, you wouldn’t bother. Wearing a properly tied necktie is an affirmative statement that the wearer is a member of so-called “proper” society.
In other words: society values difficult systems and traditions precisely because they’re difficult.
Tying a necktie is a difficult skill to pass along in a book; you’re much more likely to have the skill passed down to you in person by a father or older brother. If you’ve grown up in a working-class community with a father who never wore ties — or in a ghetto with a completely absent father — or in a remote farming community where there’s no opportunity or occasion for wearing ties — you’re less likely to learn.
Not only is the Windsor knot difficult to learn, but society requires that you learn this skill even though there is a better and easier alternative. On the whole, clip-on ties look the same and act the same as your garden-variety necktie. It’s not always easy to tell the difference between the two. Yet those who use clip-ons in our society are considered lazy, cheap or uncultured.
The Societal Purpose of Spelling
Back to spelling.
If the complicated rules of English are such a chore to learn, why don’t we streamline the language and trim away the useless fat? (See Václav Havel’s marvelous play The Memorandum for a fascinating exploration of this idea.) Why don’t we simplify? Why don’t we make English easy enough so that everyone can learn it without complication?
Think back to the necktie discussion. Society values a properly Windsored necktie because it gives us an easy way to measure a person’s knowledge of the rules of culture. Likewise, society values a complex system of spelling and grammar because it gives us an easy way to measure a person’s education.
If you can’t spell or punctuate properly, you are labeling yourself as uneducated. You haven’t learned society’s secret handshake. Whether you’re aware of it or not, there is a certain stratus of people who will see you as an outsider. As much of an outsider as a man wearing a clip-on tie.
Spelling and Elitism
Is it elitist to think that society uses spelling, punctuation and grammar to fence out the uneducated? Sure, but before you start getting too far ahead of yourself, keep in mind that the “uneducated” agree with this particular valuation system too.
Sometime in the mid ’90s, I transcribed an interview that a black co-worker of mine had done with a group of rap artists for a hip-hop magazine. I handed him the transcript with every “motherfucker” and “nigger” dutifully typed out. He laughed and pointed out that, in the hip-hop community, those words were spelled “muthaphukka” and “nigga.”
Why purposefully misspell those words? Because so-called “cultured” white people have a different way of spelling those words. (Never mind that the so-called “cultured” people, white and black, generally frown on those words altogether.) Because the hip-hop community wants to purposefully distance itself from mainstream culture. Because the hip-hop community has said, in effect: “You go ahead and tie your Windsor knots. We’re going to stand outside and flaunt our clip-on ties.”
I could go on about how politicians exploit this phenomenon too, but I’ve already meandered far enough afield, and you’re better off reading George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” anyway.