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As a teacher of literature and composition classes, as well as creative writing (non-fiction, fiction, poetry, and drama), I am sometimes attacked by Imposter Syndrome (What am I doing here? What do I have to teach anyone?).
As a writer, I know that the writing process is not completely straightforward. It requires input from the left side of the brain (supposedly the logical side) as well as the right side (supposedly the creative, intuitive side). As a writing teacher, I encourage students to keep journals of various kinds, including dream journals, and mine them for material.
The editing process involves imposing some order on the sometimes-incoherent messages from the inner Oracle. Some knowledge of grammar and punctuation is required, but students sometimes complain that traditional rulebooks on such things tend to be: 1. intimidating, 2. confusing, and 3. boring.
Would erotic writers be interested in an appropriate (i.e. inappropriate for the classroom) grammar workshop? At the Erotic Authors conference in Las Vegas in 2011, Shar Azade and I presented this event, complete with handouts to take away. It seemed to be a success.
Ever since then, I have considered writing an erotic guide to the parts of speech, sentence construction, verb conjugation, and the use of punctuation as accessories. It lends itself to being written in brief sections, so various charts and exercises in this Work-in-Progress litter the Documents on my home computer.
I offer for your consideration a discussion of two different but related verbs. You can’t afford not to make their acquaintance.
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Two verbs that are often confused are “to lay” and “to lie.” Many people don’t even know they are not the same!
Here is a brief introduction:
Hello, I am TO LAY. I am a transitive verb, which means that I always have a direct object. To put it more bluntly, I am always Dominant. I need someone or something to work on.
I (to lay). O (object)
Here are some examples:
I lay a lace tablecloth on the table when I’m expecting company.
My assistant lays out the implements ahead of time.
My guests lay their clothing on the guest bed before presenting themselves for inspection.
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I am TO LIE. I am intransitive, meaning that I perform actions alone. This really means I am a solitary masturbator. I don’t need anyone or anything.
I (to lie, a solitary verb). (I don’t need a thing.)
Here are some examples:
I lie down when I am tired.
My Bonnie lies over the ocean, and my love letters lie to her in her ebony chest with the lock.
What secrets lie in her heart?
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Here is TO LAY conjugated in first-person singular:
I laid (simple past), I lay (simple present), I will lay (simple future).
I was laying (past progressive), I am laying (present progressive), I will be laying (future progressive)
I had laid (past perfect), I have laid (present perfect), I will have laid (future perfect).
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Simple, right?
Now, here is the confusing part: “lay” can be used as a past-tense form of “to lie.”
Here is TO LIE conjugated in different tenses.
I lay (simple past), I lie (simple present), I will lie (simple future)
I was lying (past progressive), I am lying (present progressive), I will be lying (future progressive)
I had lain (past perfect), I have lain (present perfect), I will have lain (future perfect)
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These examples should lay all the confusion to rest!
Interesting post Roberta and I would love to lay a copy of your book on my desk. As an engineer by day, I have the common genetic defect of poor writing skills shared by most of my peers. Discovering that I enjoy writing erotica has made me wish I paid more attention to English classes in school.
Doesn’t it seem to you, Jean, that youth these days are either bored or irritated by everything useful?!
I definitely think you could sell this course… or turn it into a book.
A favorite rule: A preposition at the end of a sentence is something up with which I will not put.
You could do an article on “You’re and your.” “Your so sexy.”
And one on “I and Me.” “Me and you could never be a couple.”
I think the rise in texting and email have contributed to the demise of grammar. The fewest key strokes rule.
Thanks for the responses, Larry, Lisabet, and Chaz. The rise of texting and email might possibly have had an effect on the demise of grammar, but I suspect that a more direct cause is a decline of grammatical instruction in public schools. Students don’t know this stuff because no one explained it to them. Their teachers didn’t know this stuff because no one explained it to them.
I taught non-credit creative writing classes to “seniors” (people between age 55 and death) in the 1990s. Most of them had no formal education beyond high school, but their sentence construction was solid because they had learned to construct sentences at a formative age. One of my students said she was born on the day of a famous tornado in 1912 (a few months after the sinking of the Titanic).
As far as I can speculate, grammar was routinely taught to children throughout North America before (& possibly into) the 1950s. I’m afraid that the social upheavals of the late 1960s were accompanied by a vague belief that “grammatical correctness” was akin to prudery and conservatism in general, and that children didn’t really need to learn that stuff because they could just pick up communication skills in the air or on the streets.
Abbreviations were used in the 1700s, and I’m sure there were complaints about them. Texting might be a problem if people who send texts never write anything else.
I’m familiar with Winston Churchill’s witty response to a complaint that he had shockingly ended a sentence with a preposition–during WW2, when he had more urgent decisions to make. As long as his messages were understood by the people to whom they were addresses, I don’t object to his word placement. But there is the catch: if a commanding officer is giving instructions, is it really Ok (or okay) for them to be ambiguous?
I’ve been posting on Facebook for the past few months on the war against English classes (as I see it). I was alarmed when someone I know reposted a post by a high school teacher in Texas named Kylene Beers who defended a book on the Civil Rights movement (written by those who had been there) after a student’s mother complained that it was making her daughter “uncomfortable.” So Ms. Beers was against pulling controversial books out of school libraries. So far, so good. But the post was titled “A Curriculum of Irrelevance,” and included complaints that high school students are being taught “irrelevant” things like how suspense is created in a work of fiction, and how to tell the difference between a conjunction and a preposition. IMO, too many people who read and commented on this post completely agreed that such topics are “irrelevant,” and should not be taught to teenagers who need to be prepared to function as adults. (So complete removal of English classes from the public school system is overdue?).
Someone I know told me that Ms. Beers probably didn’t intend to alienate potential allies like me (& English teachers in general). I don’t know what she intended, but I know what she posted.
Since I’m quickly accumulating indignant posts in defence of English classes at various levels, as well as lists and exercises for an erotic grammar handbook, I’m wondering if all this stuff could be combined into one book-length manuscript. When I have more time to do this, I take another look at my hodge-podge of pieces.