This article about the use of grammar brought up an interesting question about how we approach language both in daily and professional life. The article opens with the novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog's 12-year old protagonist, Paloma, reacting to her teacher's musings about grammar. When posed with the question, "What is the point of grammar?" her teacher responds "to make us speak and write well." Paloma dissents from her answer, thinking instead that grammar serves as the "access to the structure and beauty of language."

This kind of discussion brings up the question of how we use language and whether we should always respect it in the sense that it is a way of conveying beauty. In that regard, language remains one of the most accessible mediums of expressing beauty--it does not require any materials or any formal training. It could be said that education is required to make full use of language, but I believe that it is not needed. However, is it needed to incorporate the beauty of language in everyday interactions such as email? Paloma "get[s] carried away just knowing that there are words of all different natures." Is this how everyone should consider language? Or the purpose of language more for pragmatism's sake than beauty's?