Despite its reputation, grammar is colourful and fascinating. Now experts report a renewed interest in the subject.

A 15-year-old boy made headlines last week after writing a passionate letter of complaint to Tesco regarding bad grammar on its bottles of orange juice. Tesco claimed it used the “most tastiest” oranges, rather than “tastiest”, “most tasty” or “distinctly average”.

The fact it was deemed newsworthy shows how rare it is to see enthusiastic pedantry at such a young age (especially if there’s no strong family history of it). But before any grammar enthusiasts get excited, he admitted language was not the only motivation – he expected some Tesco vouchers for his ordeal.

Grammar rarely makes headlines, and when it does it’s often due to conflict over something the size of an apostrophe. But there’s a much greater issue that needs addressing. We complain that children cannot construct a sentence as they used to, but this nostalgic attitude towards literacy abilities has always been around. What we need to focus on is grammar’s reputation among the young.

Last month I attended a talk on grammar. In the weeks leading up to it I told a few people and their reactions ranged from laughter to looks of disappointment to disbelief. It didn’t get much better at the talk, where the discussion often steered towards the fact that students find grammar boring…

Read more | theguardian.com/media

Photo credit | 25.365 Grammar Nerd by that edit girl on Flickr