GRAMMAR BATTLES: BIG WORDS vs. small words by NewDawnBrothers

This article was edited by John Ovuson

What is Grammar?

   Grammar is the study of the classes of words, their inflections, their relations and functions in the sentence. There are millions of words out there many of us are yet to know. I don’t know if any of you have been in a situation where you are having a real conversation with someone and on the scale of 1-100, you just know 50% of the words he says.

   I’ve come to realise grammar really stresses people and the brain hates such stress; majority of people get bored and discouraged when they read the first sentence and all they see are unknown words that needs dictionary. People love good sentence construction rather than big words. Not everyone reads with a dictionary by their side, many would promise themselves to check this words in the dictionary but finally forget due to lack of interest.

   Grammar was originated to save space rather than cause confusion in the minds of your audience so don’t get it twisted. Reading is good, I figure out many writers adopt gigantic vocabulary to show off their grammatical strength (BIG WORDS) or rub their bookish triumph on their readers’ face.

   Some words literally make individuals look stupid that sometimes when they visit the dictionary, they realize it is something they already knew and if only the writer or speaker had been clearer, it would have saved them the double stress and personal embarrassment (we all have been there at some point in our lives) . I think for you to be a good writer or speaker, you have to be an effective communicator.

   Why do writers write? To make a point; if you don’t use clear words, the point can be barely seen or gotten from the piece of art. An example is a text book I read when I was in the University for the Course ‘film production’, the book is written by Mr. Emman Owums Owuamalam, a PhD holder. Initially he warned that for us to understand his book, we need our dictionary beside us. I figured along the line that people spend many hours on one page rather than covering several pages due to the strong level of vocabulary. The question is “was he writing for us to understand or was he writing for us to develop our vocabulary? Last time I checked it was a film course and not an English class. Although on the brighter side before we start getting things wrong, I figured out that back then when I use to study the dictionary intensively, the words I learnt are those words that have come to my rescue today. There are two types of writing and speaking, the formal and the informal. The formal are the ones that people use for high personalities, while the informal are for common men. Either way, you need to study your audience so you know which type to use.

   Take a look at some people who read more books than others at a tender age, they are exposed to reading novels and other articles which yes, develop their grammar and also mental horizon; but at the tail end, who makes the money?…do people use grammar to make money? Of course not! Rather with the use of ideas and creativity. In every business or work place, it all boils down to the use of simple, more understandable sentences to communicate in other to get a positive feedback from the person who is being communicated to for proper effectiveness.

   Everyone has a level of creativity in them and that’s why God gave us a brain. When goods or services are advertised on TV, radio or any media, what sentence do they use? Simple and clear sentences. Even in journalism one of the criteria and qualities of a good news story is brevity and clarity. Just because a person is grammatically informed does not mean somebody who isn’t lacks creative sentence construction skills. It’s a crime to discriminate or judge someone via their level of grammatical vocabulary.

   There is no writer in this world that has written a platinum book like writers Apostle Paul, St. John, St. Peter and the rest scriptural writers of the bible which we know wrote some books in the Bible. Back then they barely made use of grammar that breaks our communication sense today. For example, in the communication between GOD almighty and man, there was no place in the bible where GOD blew thunderous grammar in other to communicate with the people; rather he made use of simple instructions, directions and commands. In addition, looking at the Ten Commandments from GOD to Moses to us, the words were plain and understandable. Will we then say GOD is not smart? “GOD  understands communication better than anyone, showing us from the way he spoke to his prophets and his people in the bible that the easier the content of a word used in communication, the better the understanding” (Dontel Rajis 2014).

   If you think speaking grammar is all, why invent the dictionary where every word, big or small is being broken down and explained. Everything boils down to simplicity, which explains why there are other translations of the Bible (close to 100 translations) where each word and sentence is effectively communicated to the readers. So does it mean the major need for communication is simplicity? I would say a big YES.

   In conclusion, I think before any one is to write or speak such person needs to know the grammatical level of the potential audience in order to communicate effectively. That’s why there are different vocabularies for different occupations. Children should be thought constructive sentences at a younger age so they can grow to speak clearly and to be understood even in 10 seconds in a conversation. At this juncture, sorry if any of you is to feel insulted but I know I’ve spoken the minds of many who suffer from grammatical discrimination.