Learning rules of grammar and punctuation do not provide an infallible capacity to understand what the composer of a text meant when they wrote it.
(This is so for those who study texts which originally had no punctuation at all)
These guides and markers can provide help and insight, but not absolute mastery.
Also, knowing all these rules does not in itself make one a masterful communicator.
Attempts to make reading an objective science fall short in the experience of written expression as a subjective art.
This is the author’s challenge.
In Semicolon, Cecelia Watson poses the issue with this question:
How do we learn to use English is a way that sticks better and works better than an abstracted list of memorised rules? And who do we learn to develop a writing style that’s recognisable, and at the same time master the ability to be flexible with that style as the occasion requires?
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