All throughout childhood, while my peers were socializing and making friends, I studied the blade read so many books that I am now almost legally blind, which left me with vast and deeply instinctual understanding of English grammar - and next to no ability to explain how it actually works. Friends will often ask me to proofread their writing and then get very mad when I say things like, “You need to completely reverse this sentence and cut this clause entirely; no, I’m sorry, i don’t know why, I just know that the way it is now ITCHES π”
Now, what I want to see is a fantasy story where this plays out with MAGICAL grammar. Someone from a backwater town deeply steeped in folk magic arrives at Wizard Uni where all their fellow students are like “What do you mean, we should add another ‘π―ββπΏ’ to the incancation because it 'sounds better’? What do you mean, 'it could just be a regional thing’?? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'THIS SPELL JUST FEELS LIKE IT NEEDS A LIVE RAT’????”
“I mean, on the plus side, there’s live rats in a lot of places, so the odds of you casting that spell within close enough range of a live rat to work is pretty high? Like, if you’ve ever had that spell just randomly fizzle out on you, then you tried it again ten minutes later without changing anything and it suddenly worked, a rat probably just wandered into range in that time.”
