I think that the following statement is suspect:

>the English-speaking world is littered with excellent writers who
>have experienced limited contact with formal grammar study.

Most of the truly accomplished writers of today have probably
taken the time to be interested in the materials of their medium:
language.

And for the great writers of history, of course, grammar was
foundational knowledge and intellectual training.  Every
accomplished writer until about fifty years ago was thoroghly
trained in grammar and old-fogey methods.

This other point is not really true either:

> Professional athletes do pretty well without knowing the names of the
> muscles they use, nor without a conscious understanding of how they
> coordinate various muscles to do what they do.

Accompished athletes are excruciatingly conscious of what they
are doing.

Upper level athletes educate themselves in everything from muscle
anatomy to respiration and physiology.  They certainly _do_ know
the names and movements of the various muscles involved in a
given manoeuvre.

But the aspect of athletics that is even more relevant to grammar,
is the method of to _training_ that athletes follow.

Athletes train through repetitive drills (akin to grammar drills and
worksheets).  They practice the elementary movements in a
repetitive way, in order to execute them in a spontaneous and
skillful way when the game is really on.

Athletes practice patterns, musicians labour over scales and
arpeggios, but (in educationalist theory) writers can go it on
inspiration alone.  Writers can supposedly achieve excellence
without knowledge or discipline.  I don't buy it.

Here's a quote that I do agree with:

"The half-baked Rousseauism in which most of us have been
brought up has given us a subconscious notion that the free act is
the untrained act.  Bur of course freedom has nothing to do with
lack of training.  We are not free to move until we have learned to
walk; we are not free to express ourselves musically until we have
learned music; we are not capable of free thought unless we can
think.  Similarly, free speech cannot have anything to do with the
mumbling and groussing of the ego.  Free speech is cultivated and
precise speech, which means that there are far too many people
who are neither capable of it nor would know if they lost it."
Northrop Frye, The Well-Tempered Critic.

There may be "good" writers who don't know anything about
grammar; but I would hazard to guess that these are actually
"adequate," not "good" writers.  Anyone can mumble along in a
way that is acceptable in today's verbose talk-show culture.

But to have real self-expression, you have to know grammar.

-----------------------------------------------------
Sincerely, Robert Einarsson
please visit me at
www.artsci.gmcc.ab.ca/people/einarssonb

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