The gorilla of grammar

I know that as many of you read the title to this particular thread of thought, you will feel as if I have just committed the verbal equivalent of mass murder. As your mind threatens to unravel at the mere mention of grammar, or spelling, or even punctuation, just remind yourself that English class is over and done with. You suffered through it, and you have succeeded, at least as far as making it out of the classroom.

But the point remains, hanging there like the invisible gorilla passing through the room.
(For those of you who have yet to know who that invisible gorilla might be or what on earth he has to do with grammar, see the link here for more information).

Grammar is more important than ever. It has been slowly creeping into the room, eventually coming to stand blatantly in the middle of the room, waving and staring with an odd little smile, just waiting for us to notice. Yet most of us continue to stare blankly at anything, everything, but the gorilla in the room.

I stand up now to say, PAY ATTENTION! The gorilla of grammar is there, and the sooner we learn to look for it, the better off in life we will be.

A new study posed in the journal of Psychological Science shows just how important the subject of grammar is to us all, even when we have decided ourselves far too old to sit in an English class anymore.
This study (Hart & Albarracín, 2011) asked participants to sit as judge over a "criminal case". They were given a list of what a person "was doing" or a list of what a person "did". They then rated whether they thought the person was innocent or guilty, and whether the actions were intentional.

What started as an innocent little grammar problem turned into very real results. People rated the person who "was doing" things as having more harmful intent, and therefore was also rated with a "guilty" verdict more frequently.

Is it simple grammar anymore? The way a question is posed can alter the answer. Suddenly the gorilla of grammar is hard to ignore.

So instead of beating our chests, hooting and hollering, about how we have to listen to our English teachers when they tell us "grammar is important", why don't we sit down and take the time to look over what we write?

If a blog is your thoughts put out on the Web, why not stop and take the time to make them thoughtful? Don't be afraid to embrace your spellchecker. Don't be afraid to wonder "should I use than or then"? And don't be afraid to wave back to that "monkey in the middle" and use his odd little grin to your advantage.