In a Deeply Divided World, Can Anything Unite Us? Perhaps a Comma Or Two.
Ellen Jovin is a grammarian whose conversations about language can help us connect in a world that feels broken.
America is divided. Polarization is rife.
Are we talking about politics? Perhaps. But when Ellen Jovin expresses these sentiments she is more likely referring to the Oxford comma, dangling modifiers or split infinitives.
Jovin, who lives on New York City's Upper West Side, is a grammarian: She’s a self-described grammar nerd who relishes conversations and, indeed, debates, with anyone—family, friends, strangers—about the wide and wonderful world of language. And she doesn’t just limit herself to English: Ellen has studied more than 25 languages for fun.
While many might share Jovin’s enthusiasm for the spoken and written word, few can claim that it’s taken them to all 50 states of America—with a folding “Grammar Table” in tow.
What started as road trip to discuss punctuation, tenses and syntax with people across the country, evolved into an educational odyssey—a nationwide tour of town squares, sidewalks and other public places, teaching Jovin some unexpected lessons; lessons about our collective hunger for community and human contact—and about the beauty of disagreeing on something that is neither ideological (though some may argue otherwise) nor political.
In 2022, Jovin published a book about the traveling grammar table—“Rebel with a Clause”—which became a national bestseller. Her husband Brandt Johnson, meanwhile, spent six years making a documentary about his wife. It captures Jovin’s journey and the sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes touching moments of humanity that can unexpectedly stem from conversations ostensibly about grammar. A New York City premiere is scheduled for March 4, which also happens to be National Grammar Day. (Yes, really.)
Jovin shared with The Persistent her love of grammar, the origins of her Grammar Table (don’t worry, we’ll explain), and how conversations about language can help us connect in a divided world.
Ellen, one day in 2018, you left your apartment and set up a Grammar Table on the sidewalk near your closest subway station. On the table you put a sign inviting people to ask you questions about grammar. Why?
A big motivation for the Grammar Table was that I was sick of spending so much time online. Since 2009, I had been maintaining a language-learning blog called “Words & Worlds of New York,” where I wrote about my experiences studying a bunch of languages and reviewed hundreds of language-learning products.
I was also in oodles of language groups online. It was all great fun and incredibly rewarding, but I was spending too much time on the internet and it made me cranky.
I decided it would be fun to move the grammar action outside. Yes, this was initially all about grammar hedonism. I ordered a folding table and made myself a sign. Making my grammar advice stand was pretty quick and easy.
On the first day, someone came over to talk to me as soon as I sat down at the table. I don’t remember his first question, but I do remember his second, which I will avoid repeating because it contained political content and I try to avoid politics at the Grammar Table! Since then, I’ve talked to literally thousands of people.
You’re originally from California but you’ve lived in New York for several decades. Is there something unique about New Yorkers and their willingness to engage in conversation with a total stranger?
Not really, but New Yorkers are probably more accustomed to street table culture than people in some other parts of the country. There are lots of tables around here. Not all the tables are connected to entirely savory activities, but at least people are used to encountering them!
When I lived in California, I had to drive a lot, as is true for many Californians. It’s harder to find a good spot for a grammar advice stand in places where there’s a ton of driving and not much of a pedestrian culture. But persistence pays off.
The Grammar Table proved so popular, you and your husband Brandt decided to take it on the road—eventually taking you to every state in the U.S. Tell me a bit about that trip.
Initially I thought we would go to many states; I was not thinking we would go to all the states. But as we started to drive west and we got into a rhythm, we realized we could make it to all the states by the middle of 2020 if we were very organized.
We had almost finished when Covid shut us down early that year. By then we had taken the Grammar Table to 47 states and were missing only Alaska, Hawaii, and Connecticut. (Yes, we know Connecticut is right next to New York; that’s part of why we weren’t in a rush to get there.) We hit the last three in 2022, after my book was published. There is a plane-friendly version of the table, foldable down the middle, that we hauled with us.
As for what I learned, well, Brandt and I were already U.S. road-trippers. We’d driven around the country multiple times already. Nonetheless, visiting someplace with a Grammar Table is different from visiting someplace without a Grammar Table. Wherever we went, as soon as the table hit the ground, we were hearing local people’s word stories. Visitors shared things about their lives—about school, spouses, parents, children and friends. The Grammar Table created intimacy.
I was surprised by the range of visitors. There were grammar-inquisitive people of every age and from all walks of life. I had a surprisingly complex language conversation on the streets of Fargo, N.D., with a man who was not in good shape. I could smell the alcohol on his breath, but his questions were sophisticated and he was kind. You can’t predict who the grammar nerds will be—or what a chance to talk about something meaningful will mean to people.
A lot of us spend an unnatural amount of our life looking at screens. I think there is a widespread hunger for community and human contact.
You wrote a book about the Grammar Table—“Rebel With a Clause”—that came out in 2022. In it, you make a compelling case for grammar conversations that go far beyond debates about Oxford commas and misplaced modifiers. Explain.
Even people who seem to have little in common have so, so much in common. We all eat, we all poop, we all (at least occasionally) punctuate. Curiosity about language is widespread, and those who proclaim they have no interest in it are often quite regularly interested in it in spite of themselves—as long as the subject is approached in the right way and they feel welcome and unjudged.
People are not meant to spend their days online arguing about the small sliver of things they do not have in common. We are meant to be in light, and air—in touch with other people. I happen to like grammar, so this is the Grammar Table as opposed to, say, the Crocheting Table—though I loved crocheting and needlepoint as a kid. And I believe in the power of all kinds of cooperative, positive, communal activities to create healthy societal bonds. When we have those bonds, we can manage and overcome our differences more effectively as they arise.
In an era of great political division, what role can language play in creating connection and common ground?
Words can certainly divide. At the Grammar Table, however, the discussions are focused mostly on details. Details can be therapeutic and meditative, and talking about them is fun as well as educational. Language allows us to maintain large, complex societies, and it is fantastic to explore the many facets of it with others.
In 50 states, I never got into a single fight about language. Maybe a couple of people were disappointed in my position on, say, “further” versus “farther,” or on concluding prepositions, but the discussions involved much laughter, and my husband and I made a lot of friends along the way.
Your husband Brandt has just finished a documentary about the Grammar Table road trip. Tell me more.
Brandt was present for many of the Grammar Table’s early encounters. He found them moving and wanted to give them a bigger audience. Pretty quickly he conceived of a plan to make a film, and I included that idea in my book proposal: We would travel around the country, I would write a book about my Grammar Table encounters, and Brandt would shoot a movie.
He spent six years making the film and was the producer, director, cinematographer, sound recordist, and editor. He is like a one-man band of filmmaking. Since he had never made a movie before, it all kind of boggles my mind!
The world premiere took place on January 10, at the language museum Planet Word in Washington, D.C. It was totally oversold, and people laughed throughout the film. I am pretty sure some of them cried too. Our New York City premiere is going to be on National Grammar Day, March 4.
Finally, what’s your favorite grammar question to answer?
I love so many questions that I can barely respond to your question without grieving the loss of all the topics that will remain unmentioned. However, I am extra fond of discussing the plurals and possessives of names, especially when they end in s. For example:
After a contentious apostrophe discussion, the _____ (plural of surname Smith) were no longer speaking to the _____ (plural of surname Jones).
But please note that this is not what happens at the Grammar Table. At the Grammar Table, the Smith family and the Jones family totally get along!
[Ed note: the answers to Ellen’s question are “Smiths” and “Joneses”]
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