Great question! For me, the study of grammar arose from a deeply ingrained
character trait (sometimes flaw) -- not liking to lose. When I was in the
7th grade, my middle school's honor society went to a state convention. At
the convention, there were many academic competitions. My English teacher
tapped me to compete in the English competition (side note -- I had studied
very little grammar up to that point, and I think she selected me because of
my writing achievements, which I contribute largely to being an avid
reader). I was very confident going into the competition. Then I got the
test. Every other question pertained to grammar. The basics I knew, but
anything beyond the "8 parts of speech" was a mystery to me.

Needless to say I performed poorly and was quite frustrated. I'll never
forget asking my teacher why she never taught me about a "gryphon phrase"
(gerund). I began to study traditional school grammar independently after
that so I could compete again and do better (which, thankfully for my young
ego, I did).

An important step in my process of falling in love with grammar came when I
had the opportunity to begin studying foreign languages. Knowing English
grammar terminology and concepts (hey, there's that gryphon phrase!) was a
HUGE advantage. I just "got" things much easier because I had a basis of
comparison. That led to my realization that grammar was one part of a larger
field of study -- linguistics. Bring drawn also to the classroom, I quickly
realized that there wasn't much "language" in the language arts. So I began
tying together threads from both linguistics and educational pedagogy.

So, I guess my love of linguistics, grammar, and education springs from a
stubborn streak, but the advantages that grammar knowledge brings became
apparent quickly.

John

On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 2:46 PM, David Kehe <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I imagine that most of us on this listserv have an intrinsic interest in
> studying grammar.  In other words, we study it just for the joy of it.  But
> why?  Is it in our DNA to find grammar so interesting?  Did someone, for
> example, a former teacher, do something that instilled in us this interest?
>
> I would be interested to hear from any of you why you like grammar so much
> and/or how you came to like it.  It seems that if we could figure out what
> makes it so interesting to some, we might be able to come up with ways that
> we could help our students develop an intrinsic motivation for studying it
> too.
>
> Thanks,
>
> David Kehe
> Bellingham, WA
>
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>

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