Awesome! I was, like, so totally, like, Wow!

Dot Wordsworth has a delightful essay in the online Telegraph about English grammar:

To use grammar inconspicuously well is like using the laws of
aerodynamics to soar into the heavens. Language is the means by which
we communicate the most brilliant ideas and touch hearts.

It gets better, and finishes with a bang:

To refuse to correct the children’s spelling mistakes
and grammatical blunders in their writing robs them of the chance to
gain employment. Grammar for beginners must be as fiercely prescriptive
as playing scales is for anyone who wants to play the piano.

Without
a knowledge of grammar, the young will be no more able to write down
their thoughts coherently than they could text-message without knowing
how to use a mobile phone. This will frustrate them, and relegate
written English to the same kind of ghetto of incompetent
self-expression with which we are familiar from graduates of art
schools who have never learnt to draw.

Tip from Joanne Jacobs.