I'm planning on being an English major, so I can't really complain about homework. Anyone interested in biology or math or neuroscience, or any other field requiring meticulous recording of facts and memorization of terms would probably scoff at this complaint. So instead of framing this as a complaint, I might as well label it an 'observation' that's been taking place within the first two weeks of my spring semester. Anyway, my observation is that there is a massive gap between what most people know about English, and how the language actually is structured, both in technical terms and various academic circles.

This semester, I took a class called Structure of the English Language. As someone interested in English, who is considering the career possibilities that come with diving into that field, I thought it would be a good introduction to the kind of work I could end up doing (teaching, editing, etc.). I didn't really know what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I got. I thought it would be like most other English classes, with a lot of reading and a lot of writing, and there definitely is. But so far, it's not the kind of writing I expected to be doing. Structure of the English Language, as I somehow failed to divine from the title of the course, involves taking an uncomfortably close look at the English language, specifically Edited American English (the version of our language used by professional figures, the media, schools, what have you).

The above photo for this article is a perfect example. What you're seeing up there, if you don't already know, is a sentence diagram. It involves picking apart certain aspects of sentences, like subject and predicate, and organizing them in a fashion that allows one to identify the separate parts of the sentence and how they relate to each other to make a whole. Likewise, identifying separate parts of the sentence can help with diagramming. And what I never really knew was that sentences, no matter how small, are made up of many parts. There are the words, like noun and adverb and adjective, but there are also parts beyond the words, the manner in which words or phrases function, such as the direct object (the recipient of the verb) or the object complement (a noun/noun phrase or adjective/adjectival that provides information about the direct object).

Knowing which words/phrases function as what, what sentence structure they denote, and how to diagram them has proven to be an incredible challenge for me. It involves principles similar to those in math and science; memorization of terms and rules, and an 'order of operations' of sorts that dictates how sentences are structured and analyzed. Not only does this frustrate me, as I have complained to my friends, but it also highlights how little I know about my own language. My knowledge comes not from a place of education, but experience, and the same goes for most speakers of English (unless I'm just really uneducated, which is possible). I instinctively know how to make a sentence, what goes where, and what doesn't work. My mind instantly thinks of things to say, and they typically sound right; they conform to the basic grammar rules established in the English language. I learned these things from my parents, from other people, from being around those who use English and hearing how they communicate. The often-unspoken rules that exist in speech were passed down to me through exposure.

Of course, usage of the English language isn't always in line with these rules. We say things, all the time, that don't necessarily follow grammatical procedure. We've made up words like the dreaded (or beloved, depending on who you are) "bae," and I've personally integrated the word "interweb" into my vocabulary, as it's a lot more fun to say than "internet." And of course, certain dialects of English have different words and sentence structure; whereas I, living up north, am accustomed to people saying "soda," down south the word "pop" is more common. And of course, there are the large differences between American English and English. This is part of what makes this course so difficult for me: there are all these rules, yet people often don't follow them. Indeed, for every rule, there are always a few exceptions, some being more common than one might think. Language, like the people who use it, is varied and has many forms, none of which is ultimately 'correct.'

Studying English, I have found it to be both a rigid field, and one full of flexibility. Natural languages used for widespread communication, like English and German and Dothraki (you won't hear that nearly as much), are the most common form of language. Languages such as music, math, and programming languages are used by groups, people who have talent and interest in a certain area (although math is much broader in use than the other two). But spoken languages such as English are used by the entire world, disregarding age and almost any other factors. Amongst the world's languages, English is the most widely spoken, in some form or another. It stands to reason that, despite the stringent rules it carries, exceptions are almost as normal as the rules themselves. Natural language is beyond human control; it's taken a life of its own. I don't mean to devalue the intricacy and uniqueness of other languages, of course. But the clear divide between English as a language form, and as a means of communication, have left me confused...but also very, very intrigued.