Hope is the best
Words matter more than grammar
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If you know me even a little bit, you’ll likely see it coming when I stand on my soap box and preach about my love for the Oxford comma (or the serial comma, if you prefer). Maybe you even know how intensely I will research words; synonyms, antonyms, meanings, origins, etymology, localized spellings, colloquialisms, and there’s gotta be more I could add to this list, but you should get the picture by now.
I am a word geek.
Somebody once called me a wordsmith, and think that’s a stretch. Truth is, I’m just frustrated at what a poor tool words can be at times. I need them to do more for me. I need them to express feelings and sensations through the page, and if you’re any kind of writer, you probably know how hard it is to do that with such simple tools as words. If I could give you a direct channel into my brain, that would be better. I just don’t know how to wire that.
Along the way to becoming the word-geek I am today, I got really caught up in the finery of linguistics. Diagramming sentences in early high school was SUCH joy for me. Don’t split infinitives. Never let a participle dangle. I dove so intensely into the perfection of writing that I pursued a future in copyediting at one point. I believed I could *fix* everyone’s writing and make it better.
Well, that went like a lot of dreams in my life. It faded and was replaced by “the next new thing,” but I never truly let go of the perfection of writing somehow being the epitome of “good” writing.
Good writing has no errors.
Good writing includes no typos, misspellings, or grammatical errors.
Good writing always uses the right word for the right thing.
Good writing *must* be perfect.
And so you’d think that when apps like Grammarly came out, I’d be super excited about how they could *fix* all that writing out there in the world. Finally there was guidance for just about anyone to “get it right” the first time around.
Only… there is this feeling growing inside of me that perfection can only rob us of some delicate beauty created by mistakes and errors and “the wrong word” in the right place.
That’s our framing. Hold onto that. Hold onto that notion that I started out as the Literary Commandant and then gradually shifted into discomfort about what that might really mean.
In my current day job I work with roughly 3,000 coworkers. That’s a lot of people. And we all come from highly varied backgrounds. The entrance requirement is a high school diploma or GED. That’s it. Simple. You’d be amazed at the number of graduate degrees that abound in my field. They’re not necessary for the work we all do, but many of us have them anyway. You’d be equally amazed by the number and variety of home countries and languages represented in my pool of coworkers. I can’t even count all of them. Some of my work colleagues are first generation Americans, some are second. Some are here on green cards like my wife used to be. Some fly home to far off destinations every year to see their families. Some have called Turtle Island home from long before it was colonized.
And the stories! Oh, the stories all of those 3,000 friends bring to me every time I see them and catch up!
It is in that context that we now arrive at Hope.
“I was talking to [our coworker] this morning about how we’re going to handle this big work problem,” one of my friends said on the phone. “We talked for over an hour about all the things we’ve set up, and I just don’t know if it’ll be enough. Everyone is feeling overwhelmed and under-resourced. And right at the end he said something magical.” There was a silence, and I waited. “He said, ‘Hope is the best.’ And it just hit me… Yeah, hope really is the best.”
“That’s such a great thing to say,” I echoed.
“But,” I could hear the hesitation in her voice, “maybe he meant to say, ‘Hope FOR the best,’ and he just said it wrong.”
And maybe he did. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it was poor word choice.
Or.
Or maybe he said exactly what she heard. Maybe he wanted her to see that hope is enough, that it contains its own power, its own driving force. Maybe there was nothing wrong with that phrase at all. Maybe it was perfect.
In our pursuit of making everything right, what do we risk losing? Should we forgo creativity and wildness? Must we colonialize every sentence? And how do we know that our way of using words is the right way? Is there only one right way? Does an actual “right way” exist?
And why can’t our words be playthings? Clay and chalk and paint and buttons, and pieces of paper glued together. Sticks in a row, pebbles strewn. If we cannot play with language, why do we hold it so dear?
I’m sending out fragments. Single words that shouldn’t have the right to exist on their own with a period at the end. Dear god, a run-on sentence? How dare I.
How dare you?
Hope is the best. Sit with that for a moment. Feel your way through it. Let the words stretch into your bones, through your skin, let them rest on your eyelashes. If it was a linguistic accident, it’s the best accident I have ever observed. And how many other accidents like this are out in the world just waiting to be discovered if we can loosen our tight grip on perfection, on I-know-what-word-belongs-here, on this-is-how-it’s-done?
Grammarly would have wiped that sentence out without breaking a sweat. It would delete all of the creativity and uniqueness and beauty of our messiness. It won’t mourn the loss of our imperfection. It would never seek out a flaw to amplify with love.1
But you and I know better.
Loosen your grip. Let imperfection be the goal. Get your toes dirty, and wipe your hands on your shirt. And never, ever let go of hope. Because hope is the best.
Your trans friend,
Robin
This, alone, should resolve some of your fears of AI in the world of writing. No algorithm will ever replace human passion or expression, especially in our messiest places.
I was an English major. I know how to write a complete sentence, have a decent vocabulary and can punctuate. However, sometimes slang, puns and words considered improper, like “ain’t”, can convey a wholly different vibe. There’s nothing wrong with playing to one’s audience or to make a point. Some of my family’s funniest moments came from an innocent slip of the tongue or a malaprop.
I have heard from multiple other neurodivergent writers that sometimes unconventional phrasing or formatting is required or preferred to express their/our experiences. I appreciate that you are looking for the meaning first before considering the rules. And this is a beautiful message of hope!