“ #Socrates said, “The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.” He wasn’t talking about grammar. To misuse language is to use it the way politicians and advertisers do, for profit, without taking responsibility for what the words mean. Language used as a means to get power or make money goes wrong: it lies. Language used as an end in itself, to sing a poem or tell a story, goes right, goes towards the truth. A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.”
~ Ursula K. Le Guin
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Roland Häder🇩🇪
in reply to ramnath • •cranston- likes this.
Amina Jojo
in reply to ramnath • • •ramnath
in reply to ramnath • • •grammar(n.)
late 14c., "Latin grammar, rules of Latin," from Old French gramaire "grammar; learning," especially Latin and philology, also "(magic) incantation, spells,
mumbo-jumbo" (12c., Modern French grammaire), an "irregular semi-popular adoption" [OED, 2nd ed. 1989] of Latin grammatica "grammar, philology," perhaps via an unrecorded Medieval Latin form *grammaria.
The classical Latin word is from Greek grammatike (tekhnē) "(art) of letters," referring both to philology and to literature in the broadest sense, fem. of grammatikos (adj.) "pertaining to or versed in letters or learning," from gramma "letter" (see -gram). An Old English gloss of it was stæfcræft (see staff (n.)).
A much broader word in Latin and Greek; restriction of the meaning to "systematic account of the rules and usages of language" is a post-classical development.
Until 16c. limited to Latin; in reference to English usage by late 16c., thence "rules of a language to which speakers and writers must conform" (1580s). The meaning "a treatise on grammar" is from 1520s.
For the "magic" sense, compare gramary. The evolution is characteristic of the Dark Ages: "learning in general, knowledge peculiar to the learned classes," which included astrology and magic; hence the secondary meaning of "occult knowledge" (late 15c. in English), which evolved in Scottish into glamour (q.v.).
A grammar-school (late 14c.) originally was a school for learning Latin, which was begun by memorizing the grammar. In U.S. (1842) the term was put to use in the graded system for a school between primary and secondary where English grammar is one of the subjects taught.
The word is attested earlier in surnames (late 12c.) such as Robertus Gramaticus, Richard le Gramarie, whence the modern surname Grammer.
etymonline.com/word/grammar
Grammar - Etymology, Origin & Meaning
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Amina Jojo
in reply to ramnath • • •Thank you. I meant grammar in a more broader, figurative sense, as I understand it in the Le Guin quote.
It should be clarified, though, what "genderwoowoo" actually means... it sounds like a derogatory term for something connected with gender.
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ramnath
in reply to ramnath • • •innnerstand and overcome the belief systems that separate
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