thoughts on the much-maligned study of grammar, and on why humans actually enjoy learning details…
In April of 2020, living under stay-at-home orders, my daughters and I began the “Quarantine Sonnet” Project. Each day, we each tried to write a sonnet, and we posted them on the wall of our hallway!
Naming Details "Grammar," they say, with wrinkled nose and scorn-- So obviously useless, boring, dull. Why label what you've known since you were born And memorize the labels, whole charts full? Why draw a thousand beetles, tiny wings each different on the page, with care inscribed? Why learn the names of flowers in the Spring Or stats of pitchers, when you are not bribed? We see what we have named and understood. Unnamed, the landscape blurs and seems a waste. The details of the world are mental food, And humans love to know, collect, and taste. God's glory is the fullness of the earth; To name each thing is to receive his mirth.
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