The Fear of English | Correct Your Grammar

 "Grammar Correction" does produce "Grammar Fear"

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Dear Reader,

Here are some of my bizarre problems with the fear of English and my experience with grammar correction.

By the way, this is the very first post of my blog. To tell you the truth, I had a rough idea of what a blog was but never thought of writing one.

Please allow me to tell you something about me. I am a lifelong learner of the English language. I am also afraid of the English language like many others who do not speak English. But by necessity, I also sometimes have to write in English. But the problem is that, by the time I finish writing a sentence, I am possessed by a strange fear of uncertainty. I begin to feel that there must be a grammatical error in the sentence. And this tendency to doubt started to grow rapidly from the moment I started reading about the questions and answers on Quora. I'm sure you all know that there is a platform by the name of Quora. That is a website for questions and answers. On this site, I often notice that language experts correct grammar mistakes for English learners like us. With the intention of making the sentence grammatically correct if anyone asks for it on the site, the language experts correct it with their explanations.

Am I a victim of ‘Grammatical Pedantry Syndrome’ (GPS)?

As mentioned above, I've also been used to hanging out in the question-and-answer section on Quora for a while now. I cannot deny that it benefits me a lot. But over a period of time without my knowledge, a kind of fear of grammatical errors developed within me. And this fear gradually started to reside in my mind without stopping. It gradually turned into a mania. After writing each sentence, I feel that there must be some lack of naturalness in my sentence. And that fear of grammatical correctness drives me crazy. One day, my Aunt Google informed me that I might be a victim of GPS; it means that the symptoms of "grammatical pedantry syndrome" (GPS) in me are evident. She also informed me that it’s a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Later, if I get the chance, I have a strong desire to write about it one day. Now here you can obviously ask me how I am able to write this content. Listen, since I have already started writing this blog, you are likely to get the answer to this question as well and it will be gradually revealed.

Trying to get out of GPS & OCD

Let’s come back again to our main topic. As usual, I have started asking myself that in this pathetic situation of mental blockage how can I start writing my blog? The first and foremost thing is that I do not even know the ABCD of blogs. But suddenly it came to my mind that Aunt Google has already offered us a totally free site for us to write whatever we want to write on it. So what’s the harm if I try to write something there? And then I thought, okay, there’s no doubt that I want to write something; but what to write about? Suddenly an idea clicked in my mind, what if I start writing about my own experience of learning the English language? There are millions of people who are really afraid of the English language. If I share my own experience of learning the damn English language, they might be interested in reading about it. And in any case, if they find the content full of flaws, they will naturally boycott it. In the worst case, they will no longer be interested in reading my content. So in that case, what more damage do I have? Nothing more, right? So where is the problem with starting the blog?

The problems faced after starting writing

Here it is better to let you know that I am always eager to learn the English language. But as I mentioned above, my anxiety about having grammatical errors in my writing remains all the time. I always keep thinking that there must be some grammatical errors in my sentences, and the ghost of fear embraces me all the time. And by the way, please eliminate the possibility of discussing spoken English. I am not going to utter a single word about it. To give you an example, suppose I have somehow memorized a piece of a phrase, and immediately, I begin to mentally stammer before the pronunciation practice actually begins.

The main article

However, plugging in all the long-accumulated disgust and resentment regarding learning the English language that I had inside my mind, I wrote a quote in a single sentence. And after I was able to finish writing, I felt a sense of satisfaction. I felt like I had completed the best work of my life and considered this my first blog post. I really had no idea that after creating a blog, you had to keep writing more and more articles; and to add fuel to the fire, the word count in each article should not be less than 500. And as you all know, I mentioned before that to write a single sentence, I tremble like a burnt child dreads the fire. Moreover, the article has to be absolutely unique and original. Not only that, if any of your single sentences matches any other sentence from all over the world, you will be accused of plagiarism. Believe me, if I had known these things before, I wouldn't have even thought of writing this damn blog. In that only one-line quote I had written, Aunt Google accused me of stealing other people's content.

Now I will tell you the actual reason why I was objectionable to Aunt Google; I mean, why I was accused of plagiarism.

My bitter experience explained

So you can see that finally, I succeeded in completing my one-liner quote; and I was very happy. The quote was entirely based on my lifelong experience of learning the English language. However, the sooner I completed the quote; the spontaneous fear of grammar mistakes drove me crazy. I thought I should let the Quorans know about my problem. There are many well-wishers on Quora and they could help me check the grammar. So I sent that quote on Quora for grammar correction. This was the exact quote I wrote. To save myself from plagiarism disputes, I put it here in image format.

A very knowledgeable lady from Delhi, India, came forward to solve my problem. Her Highness was pleased to make my quote smarter and nicer. I am really grateful to Her Highness. Here is her corrected material for your information, obviously in image format again.

I showed her my gratitude on the site itself; in image format again.

(In order to avoid any dispute I can't mention her name here as I am not sure whether she will allow it or not)

However, if you notice, you will understand that she corrected my sentence and made it more pleasant. If any day, by chance, she reads my article; I will consider myself blessed. And if any day she gives me permission to mention her name, I will do it so.

So, back to our subject, with pleasure, I posted my article on my blog. But Aunt Google scolded me saying I was accused of plagiarism. In the blink of an eye, I understood that Aunt Google was right. The one who took the responsibility to correct my sentence should be the actual owner. I cannot, in no way, use the sentence in my article without her permission. But I was kind of gloomy and by this time I really fell in love with the quote because that was the essence of my lifelong experience of learning English. And I desperately wanted to put it in my article. So I could not resist my temptation to put it in my blog in an image format. I do not know how to acknowledge or give proper credit to her. But with due respect to her, I posted it in an image format. I don’t know whether the ma’am or Aunt Google will accept my way of giving credit to her.

However, this was my overall experience of writing my first article in my blog. And after posting the article on my blog I realized that today's world is very complex. There’s no place for appreciation for people of low merit. From next time onwards, before writing any article I have to be much more careful.

Conclusion

Dear readers, by this time you have obviously noticed that in my writing there is an absolute influence of my mother tongue. In spite of that, I am trying my level best to make it comprehensible. Judging its merit and demerit entirely depend on you. I started this blog to let you know about my experience, my sorrow, and the pain of learning the English language. At the very beginning of writing my first post, I had to face these situations. I hope you will be able to realize my problems and encourage me by commenting in the comment box below. And if all goes well, I'm sure we'll meet again in the next article. Thank you for your patience!

Nota Bene:

After gathering up some courage, I asked ma'am for her permission on the Quora Platform, and hurrah! She was kind enough to give me permission to mention her name on my blog. I was speechless and numb. I am grateful to her and I thank her from the bottom of my heart.

Here she is:

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

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Please let me know if you have got any suggestions or comments, and if you are generous enough please share these articles with your friends. 🙏🙏