Post 43

Eureka!

I've figured out a few simple changes we could implement to make English grammar so much easier! Really, I can't make myself believe that no one has thought of this before; it's so obvious!

Step One: invent some new punctuation marks. A lot of the trouble we have with punctuation is a direct result of overworked punctuation marks; the more jobs we require a punctuation mark to accomplish, the more confusion we have regarding that punctuation mark. This is why so many Americans are terrified of commas. Think of it: if we added a few punctuation marks, we could greatly reduce confusion.
But here's the really good news: we don't have to invent more than one or two marks; mostly, we just need a better division of labor. For example, check out this sentence:

My sister, Sally, and I went to the store.

That's my favorite example of common comma confusion; because commas are used both to separate clauses and to divide between items in a list, we can't be sure whether Sally is my sister or accompanying me and my sister. In this example, the answer to our confusion is not in inventing new punctuation but rather in using an underused bit of punctuation (parentheses):

My sister (Sally) and I went to the store.

There. Confusion all gone!
Many common comma conundrums can be eliminated if you understand other punctuation marks. I had no idea what a semicolon was for until about six months ago when that was explained to me in an English class; now I use them all the time. No one who understands semicolons will ever make a comma splice, it just isn't something we do (teehee!).
I do propose we employ a couple of new punctuation marks, though. Like, let's make a new punctuation mark to show possession so the apostrophe can be used solely for contractions. We do that, we can say bye-bye to the its/it's quandary. Of course, easier still would be to totally eliminate the contraction "it's" in favor of "'tis." If we did that, then "it's" could be possessive and we would eliminate the only exception to the rule.
One thing apostrophes should not be required to do (the previous sentence just reminded me) is mark quoted quotations:

Nephi said, "Behold, Isaiah said, 'Thus said the LORD to me: "Isaiah, say unto this people, 'Thus said the LORD: "If you don't repent...."'"'"

See, at the end there, you get lost in the mix. Why don't we do like some places and forget our standard quotation mark (which is really no more than a double apostrophe) and use those curvy bracket things?

Nephi said, {Behold, Isaiah said, {Thus said the LORD to me: {Isaiah, say unto this people, {Thus said the LORD: {If you don't repent....}}}}}

[NOTE: my original idea was to use carrots instead of curvy brackets. Some languages do that already, and carrots would be a lot simpler than curvy brackets when it came down to writing by hand, but carrots are used in html, so blogger gets all confused when I use that many of them in close proximity like that. Sorry.]

See? Because they are so directional, no confusion is possible. The reason we have felt obligated to have two different kinds of quotation marks (the double and single apostrophe) is that we know that, if we only had one, no one would be able to determine in a glance whether a quotation was ending or beginning to quote something else:

Nephi said, "Behold, Isaiah said, "Thus said the LORD to me: "Isaiah, say unto this people, "Thus said the LORD: "If you don't repent...."""""

I mean, contextually that makes sense, I suppose, but carrots are easier to track.
So, yeah. There you go. Other than to say that I am, as ever, in favor of the interrobang, I think that pretty well covers my thoughts on punctuation reform.

Step Two: eliminate letter cases. Really, why do we need upper and lower case letters? Is not an a as good as an A? And a t as good as a T? I really see no reason to have two cases. it would be a lot simpler to go e e cummings style and leave everything in the lowercase, methinks. I've always thought it was odd that we have two distinct alphabets without having one do anything that the other can't, but the more I think about our rules regarding capitalization, the fewer reasons I can think of to support it. For example, why do we capitalize I but not me? Or other subject pronouns like he and she? Capitalization in titles makes even less sense. Newspapers generally capitalize only the first letter in a headline, but everyone else is expected to capitalize all nouns and verbs. This creates a real problem because many simpletons (meaning most English speaking Americans) understand the rule to be "Capitalize the 'big' words," so they capitalize Because but not is. Let's just save ourselves some pain and wipe out all capital letters. THEY SERVE NO PURPOSE! (I could have, for example, simply italicized that declaration).

Step Three: eliminate gender-specific pronouns. Seriously, nothing else in our language is gender specific, why do we need he/she and him/her and his/her (and why is "her" double worked?). Let's just make everything "it." Now, I'm sure some people would be seriously offended to be referred to that way, but I doubt any of those people are hoping for gender specific "you"s and "I"s. It will suffice. This will greatly reduce pronoun disagreement; because no one likes saying or writing awkward things like, "Each speaker at the convention was in the top of his or her field," many people revert to using plural pronouns when single pronouns are required ("Each speaker at the convention was in the top of their field").

i think i've covered it. some of you may be thinking, {just three steps‽ surely your list of grievances against english must be longer than that!} i myself am somewhat surprised to be placated by so short a list, but i am pleased with the simplicity of my plan; 'tis so efficient!