I’m not good with grammar. I never have been. I was not interested in reading or writing in a serious way when I was in middle and high school. I struggled with it, given my dyslexia. So, when I read Strunk & White’s book on grammar, it went into one ear on out the other. So, suffice it to say, not a particularly strong foundation laid down right at jump.

Then I got into words. It started with James Joyce and leapt pretty shortly into William Gibson. Neither of whom are famously clean writers. Geniuses both, a lot of their genius comes from playing with language, particularly the former. As a native English speaker that sort of idiomatic, aiming for correctness, accepting rightness and sometimes shooting past it into a half-baked playful truthiness.

I think it makes me good at my job.

I also think it makes me pretty good at talking to children (at least one of them).

Lately I have been playing Sindome with a person who is English as a second language. A native Spanish speaker who, while good at English, is using the game as a way to learn it better. The way they write and speak is incredibly clear and concise and grammatically correct. So much so that it is actually difficult for me to understand. They are so committed to clarity the opposite occurs, at least to my ears (eyes?) as an English speaker who thinks the Irish are the finest writers of English.

I can’t decide if I’m teaching them, or they’re teaching me…

I should probably reread the Rules of Style…