The
key to all good writing is understanding your audience. Every
time you use language, you engage in a rhetorical activity, and
your attention should always be on the effect it will have on your
audience.
Think
of
grammar and
style as analogous to, say, table manners. Grammatical "rules"
have no absolute, independent existence; there is no Grammar Corps to
track you down for using "whose" when "of which" is more proper, just
as Miss Manners employs no shock troops to massacre people who eat
their salads with fish forks.
You can argue, of course, that the other
fork works just as well (or even better), but both the fork and the
usage are entirely arbitrary and conventional. Your job as a writer is
to have certain effects on your readers, readers who are continuously
judging you, consciously or unconsciously. If you want to have the
greatest effect, you'll adjust your style to suit the audience,
however arbitrary its expectations.
A
better analogue might be clothing. A brief submitted to a court calls
for the rough equivalent of business attire. However useless or
ridiculous a tie for men may be, however outdated its practical value
as a garment, certain social situations demand it. And if men go into
a job interview wearing a T-shirt and jeans, they only hurt themselves
by arguing that the necktie has no sartorial validity. Your job is to
figure out what your audience expects. Likewise, if your audience
wants you to avoid ending your sentences with
prepositions, no amount of argument over historical
validity will help.
But
just as you shouldn't go under-dressed to a job interview, you
shouldn't over-dress either. A white tie and tails will make you look
ridiculous at a barbecue, and a pedantic insistence on grammatical
bugbears will only lessen your audience's respect for you.
There are occasions when ain't is more suitable than is not,
and the careful writer will take the time to discover which is the
more appropriate.
Guide to Grammar and Style
by Jack Lynch.
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