Why do we do the grammarian role?
Fundamentally because we want to sound good. That does not mean to sound stuffy or pretend to have a higher level of education than we actually have. Rather we know that, for some audiences, bad grammar will close them off to our message and we want to address that.
The word of the day serves a specific purpose. It behooves us to make our speeches specific to the audience. Since our speeches generally have a Toastmasters audience, the way we practice modifying it on the fly is by working the word-of-the-day into our speeches. It's also fun.
Tips on doing the Grammarian role
Word of the day
The most important point is to listen for that word of the day. There are few things that are worse than rearranging your speech to fit in the word of the day (often in a torturous fashion) only to have the grammarian miss it.
For the above reason, it is also good form to apologize in advance for any use you may have missed when you give the report at the end of the meeting.
One rule is that any form of the word counts (not solely the noun form or the adjectival form). The reason is that any form makes you do what we're aiming for: modifying what you planned to say for the audience.
Details on what to listen for in the Grammarian role
- A common issue for people in the grammarian role is being afraid that you don't remember all the rules from 6th grade. You probably already know the basic grammar rules even if you can't name them. When a non-English speaker or a child breaks the rules, it clangs in your ears. It's those 'clanging' things that you are looking for.
- The point is not to police grammar. Rather, think of it this way: if the audience included a potential client or employer, in what ways could the speaker "level up" their presentation to sound more polished? It's polishing, not policing.
- The problem is usually not word choice. People will choose words to express ideas whereas you might have chosen different words. You are looking for whether the word choice violates good grammar (clangs in your ears).
- Also note the positive uses of language. The positives are not the content of a speech that really spoke to you. Rather, you are looking for great turns of phrase, great phrasing to express something. The need to make a decision might speak to you but consider that "I have to make a decision" is likely not grammarian-worthy while "To be or not to be" probably is.
Details on doing the report for the Grammarian role
- You don't want to re-evaluate everyone. Rather you want to give a brief report on grammar usage.
- You don't have to cite the exact rule that was violated. You also don't have to say "This is wrong". Instead:
- You can say what you heard and what you might have said differently.
- People can look up and verify the actual grammatical rule after the meeting, if they want to be exact.
- You don't have to call people out. Often the example of what you found is enough. The exception is when someone does not realize that their speech seemed non-grammatical. Then it's a good idea to say the person's name. You can say something like "I heard X when to me Y sounds better... Bill I heard this from you a few times."
Other tidbits about the Grammarian role.
- People who want to practice English as a second language almost always want to know if their grammar is off. The trick is to give enough detail so they can look it up later (or they can talk with you after the meeting). You're not going to be able to give an English lesson in the short time of a Grammarian report.
- For Grammarian it helps to document a lot. It's helpful to log every ‘neat’ phrase throughout and every potential slip-up. In your report you will only mention the top few. After each speaker, I cross out the observations that I won't report on and before making the final report I circle the few observations ('bad' and 'good') that I will use in the report. This role does more collecting and editing down.
How to get better at grammar
- Writing helps. Write a paragraph and then rewrite the same paragraph several times trying to make improvements each time. Books on writing that focus on the role of the editor help (especially ones with exercises).
- Knowing synonyms helps. Often a grammatical misstep starts with exchanging one word for another and finding that the substitute word doesn't fit what you started. If there are words that trip you up, having several options for expressing the same concept can help.
