today's grammar lesson

"Everyday" is an adjective. "Every day" is an adverbial phrase.

This is one of those subtle distinctions the confusion of which I find annoying. It's not like I look at one of the many instances where people screw it up and think, "They used the adjective instead of the adverb." No; with grammar I can tell you the rules when I think about them (thanks to a peerless and rigorous grammatical education by the world's best high school English teacher, Patricia Callan), but my knowledge of those rules is generally more instinctive. I look at something and know it's wrong.

How do I know this? How is my grammatical knowledge so extensive? Where do I get off being a grammar jerk and judging people based on the quality of their writing? What makes me an expert?

I read.

That's it. That's the answer. I read. And I have always read. A well-rounded education starts with reading, and with parents who encourage reading. My mom read to me when I was still curled up and developing in utero. I was a little fishlike thing with a tail and already absorbing words. And then growing up I grabbed up every book I could get my hands on. I still learn new words and new rules by reading. That's where the basis of my education lies. I had a fabulous formal education; don't get me wrong. But that formal education wouldn't have meant much if I hadn't already been an avid, voracious, insatiable reader.

So it irks me when people excuse themselves about not being "good at" grammar, as if well-developed grammatical skills just flower up in a person like magical ability in the world of Harry Potter. You're not Muggles and I wasn't offered something exclusive and secret, some gnosis that eludes most of the rest of humanity. Grammar's not an unbreakable code. I didn't go to school for it. Really. I went to school to read. My last grammar course was my freshman year in high school. These are rules you absorb just by reading, like you absorb the laws of physics just by walking around in the world. Anyone can learn it. Maybe I have a gift for retention, but these rules aren't that difficult to learn. (So if your reason is that you don't learn because you don't care, that's the answer I'd rather hear. I'll still be pissed, but for an entirely different reason -- and the argument will be much more fun).

Okay, end tangent. Return to beginning point of post.

"Everyday" is an adjective because it answers the question "what kind?" It describes a thing. Take this sentence: "Her grammatical rants are an everyday occurrence." What kind of occurrence are her grammatical rants? They're an everyday occurrence.

"Every day" is an adverbial phrase because it answers the question "when?" or "to what extent?" (Other adverbial questions: "where?" "how?" "under what conditions?" and "why?") It describes an action. Take this sentence: "She rants about some new grammatical error every day." When or to what extent (in other words, how often) does she rant about some new grammatical error? She rants every day.

Yes, it's weird, especially when everywhere, someday and yesterday are where and when words. I can make some sense out of it, but I lack the grammatical lingua franca to make it sound anything but thoroughly confusing.

But I can assure you that the rule is sound, however arbitrary, and that that's just the way it goes. "Everyday": adjective. "Every day": adverbial phrase.

Hm. We understand about gravity because when we fall down we hurt ourselves. Maybe people would be better at grammar if the consequences of screwing it up were attended by pain.