Why Learn Grammar?

I could not have expressed it better.

I teach a course on thesis writing to Chemistry graduate students, and always refer students to AWAD for daily inspiration. The "Some assembly required" joke gave me an unoriginal idea as well.

Your atomic analogy for the theme of the week resonated with me. The following extract is from a public radio commentary on chemistry and words. I thought you might find it amusing: While the sizes, shapes, and functionalities of molecules are infinitely variable, just as a mouthful of words can be strung together to form a two-word matrimonial confirmation, or a dizzyingly long soliloquy, there are rules of bonding that constitute a molecular grammar. For instance, "I do!" and "Do I?" will elicit vastly different emotional responses, but "He do." is not allowed. Correspondingly, the three-atom chains chlorine-oxygen-hydrogen and oxygen-chlorine-hydrogen are allowed, but have quite different chemistries, whereas chlorine-hydrogen-oxygen is not allowed. The entire commentary is online.

Preston MacDougall, Murfreesboro, Tennessee

You will meet many interesting people and ideas at: http://wordsmith.org/awad/index.html