But to create something truly impressive requires a mastery that simply cannot exist without deep understanding. The kind of understanding it takes practice and expression to learn; instead of just throwing it aside because "conveying meaning is all that matters."
If you create what you think is the greatest masterpiece ever, yet no one else understands it is so great, who is the fool?
That's why they teach the rules...
But it's not just preference, or style, or the other things alt has claimed...
It is to create the most accurate understanding possible, beyond that which is required for utilitarian uses.
Additional understanding and practice do add more versatility to your range of ability to convey meaning. This is still utilitarian.
To use you as the example, You have studied English in great depth, yet it was when you were in 7th grade that you got published. The additional understanding and practice has made you much better at using the tool of the language. But the art of language is just art, an expression. Expression is something you have always been good at. You now have a greater ability to use the tool, but has that made you any better at expressing yourself? Or understanding other expressing themselves?
I have indeed become much better at expressing myself, both on paper and in spoken word. Understanding the uses of the language, as not just a tool but an instrument has helped me in many practical ways, including as a general manager at my store. It is easier to convey a precise meaning or desire to my employees, and it is much easier to deal with both my bosses and annoying customers. The proper turn of phrase can motivate a poor worker or make a shitty customer realize that their problems are due to their own stupidity.
And if I did not know how to use the language with finesse I could not do the optimizing that I do, nor understand that done by others. I would not have set a world record here, and I would not be able to offer the homebrew advice that I do, much less work on my own large scale project.
I think the two are separate. Some people need better tools, some people can use lesser tools to greater effect.
I will agree with this entirely.
But those whose abilities become limited as their tools improve are so rare as to quite justifiably be seen as the exceptions which prove the rule; combining better skill and better tools will produce a better result than either alone.
Reading into the word order of a sentence to make an inference on how a person feels about their dog is over-analytic.
I myself said this.
You have blown past where the linguistic sciences end, and have breached into psychology the second you went "well 'X' means that 'Y' is how they feel".
Psychology and Psychiatry are "soft sciences" because the study must be altered for each individual.
So the only way for this to be "in context" enough for you to make an inference on how they feel about their dog is to have analyzed the person psychologically.
However, I feel that if this goes any further, we should move this to its own thread.
I agree with all of the above, and am glad the thread was moved.
But, the above is, precisely, my point.
One snip from one sentence will likely matter little, unless you have the context to provide it meaning.
But if you cannot determine the meaning even with that context, you are not using the language as it could be used.
The way people talk, write, and think can tell you volumes about them, when you take much of their speech or writings together. And when you know enough about a person, small changes and breaks from the norm are giant smoking beacons.
But if you never learn or pay attention to an established norm, these things are nothing but chaos to you.
And though, it seems, in large part you and I disagree only on scale; these are all examples and applications of why English does have an established norm and a 'correct' form, despite, at it's height of use, being far more an art than an equation.
