Grammar Girl here. This week Martha Brockenbrow, founder of National Grammar Day and author

of the new young adult novel Divine Intervention, tells us about when it's okay to use gasp,

bad grammar.

The summer I turned 18, I worked as an assistant for my high school art teacher. It was the job

of a lifetime, preparing canvases, making tuna sandwiches, having lunch on the deck of

his houseboat. I even got to dress in a gorilla suit to pick up his literary agent at the

airport. Oh, the pre-9-11 days of Lacks Airport Security. Anyway, yes, in addition to being

an art teacher who let us draw nude models, this man was about to become a New York Times

best-selling author. But we didn't know that just then.

In the weeks leading up to publication, one of my tasks was to read a final draft of his

book before he sent it off to his editor. He asked me for my feedback and I dutifully

complied, sitting at my parents' kitchen table with a red pan in hand. Every time I found

a sentence fragment, I'd mark it, x. Every time I found something that in some way conflicted

with the iron-clad rules I'd learned in English class, I let him know, x, x, x. I might

also have put in a few notes about things I read that touched my young but shriveled heart,

but I'm pretty sure I focused on the grammar. The book was all I really needed to know

I learned in kindergarten. It became a best-seller and cultural phenomenon, and in my B.D.I.

focus on the sentence fragments, I'd almost entirely missed the stuff about that book

that rocked the world. I was trying to be useful, but really I had been an idiot.

Fast-forward 25 years. Although I found a National Grammar Day in the Society for the promotion

of Good Grammar, I've since come to understand that Good Grammar has its place, and that place

is not necessarily in books. Certain books, of course, must follow the conventions of grammar,

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