In her acclaimed novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery captivates with a stop-you-in-your-tracks answer to the question of why grammar matters.

To usher in this eloquent grammatical tirade, twelve-year old character, Paloma Jesse, writes Profound Thought No. 10 in her journal. In this entry, the youngster tells of a schoolmate who puts voice to the question on every student’s mind, “What’s the point of grammar?”

As the teacher huffs, “The point is to make us speak and write well,” Paloma’s blood boils. “I thought I would have a heart attack then and there. I have never heard anything so grossly inept.”

She, or rather Barbery, proceeds to defend the wondrous essence of grammar as if it were a smell or taste to be savored. “Personally I think that grammar is a way to attain beauty. When you speak, or read, or write, you can tell if you’ve said or read or written a fine sentence. You can recognize a well-turned phrase or an elegant style. But when you are applying the rules of grammar skillfully, you ascend to another level of the beauty of language. When you use grammar you peel back the layers, to see how it is all put together, see it quite naked, in a way. And that’s where it becomes wonderful, because you say to yourself ‘Look how well-made this is, how well-constructed it is! How solid and ingenuous, rich and subtle.”

As Barbery illuminates the nuance of grammar, her reader is enticed to delight in the way beautifully crafted language, like a dazzling sunset or moving sonata, can enrich the senses and soul. When composed as “end in itself,” grammar is magically transformed from basic tool to work of art, “…it becomes obvious that grammar is an end in itself and not simply a means: it provides access to the structure and beauty of language, it’s not some trick to help people get by in society.”