Prescriptive Grammar Pet Peeves

 In the past years of schooling, I remember my 2nd-grade teacher constantly reminding the class not to use the and then monster. We had a huge poster in the classroom that was always there so we couldn’t forget about the monster. The prescriptive rule she enforced was never to start a sentence with And. It could be anything but that word because then it would be considered a run-on sentence, and a new thought should be for the following sentence. Ever since 2nd grade I never started a sentence with and. Those are some of the prescriptive grammar rules that stood out to me in elementary school. Another word I remember teachers throughout the years saying wasn’t a real word was imma. It is considered a slang word and not proper English. I do agree with my previous teachers on this. I did find myself yesterday saying imma. I was going somewhere with my sister, and she reminded me that I needed to put gas in the car. I told her I’ll do it later because imma be out already dropping Mom off at the airport. I corrected myself by saying I’m going to since that is the contraction for imma. As far as double negatives I don’t remember my teachers talking about that.

Leave a Reply