Which Grammar Will You Be Celebrating on National Grammar Day?

As we gear up to commemorate National Grammar Day on March 4, you might want to give some thought to the kind of grammar you'll be celebrating.

"Well, that's easy," you might be thinking. "Good English grammar, of course." And no doubt Martha Brockenbrough, founder of the event, would agree. "We want people to think about language and how it can be used best," she writes on the National Grammar Day website.

Fair enough. But linguists will be quick to remind us that English has different varieties of grammar, and the truth is they're all pretty good.

One distinction worth making is between descriptive grammar and prescriptive grammar. Both are concerned with rules--but in different ways. Specialists in descriptive grammar analyze and describe the rules or patterns that underlie our use of words, phrases, and sentences. On the other hand, prescriptive grammarians (such as most editors and teachers) try to enforce rules about what they believe to be the correct uses of language.

Although the members of these two camps spend a lot of time feuding, we happen to believe that both are valuable and worth celebrating.

But that's just the beginning. Consider some of these other kinds of grammar--and take your pick.

• Comparative Grammar
  The analysis and comparison of the grammatical structures of related languages.



• Generative Grammar
  The rules determining the structure and interpretation of sentences that native speakers accept as belonging to the language.



• Mental Grammar
  The generative grammar stored in the brain that allows a speaker to produce language that other speakers can understand.



• Pedagogical Grammar
  Grammatical analysis and instruction designed for second-language students.



• Theoretical Grammar
  The study of the essential components of any human language.



• Traditional Grammar
  The collection of prescriptive rules and concepts about the structure of the language.



• Transformational Grammar
  A theory of grammar that accounts for the constructions of a language by linguistic transformations and phrase structures.



• Universal Grammar
  The system of categories, operations, and principles shared by all human languages and considered to be innate.

For more information about National Grammar Day and the sponsors of the event, visit the website of The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar.

Image: The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, sponsor of National Grammar Day, was founded in 2004 by Martha Brockenbrough, author of Things That Make Us [Sic], published in 2008 by St. Martin's Press.