Dear Geist,

Yes or no: Do writers have to be proficient in spelling and grammar to be any good?

—Bad Speller, London ON

Dear Bad,

Anyone who is keen to write prose, poetry or any other form meant to be read is probably quite proficient in their mother tongue(s) just by virtue of having used those language(s) all their life. And anyone who wants to get better and better at writing—from the big questions like plot, suspense, character development and so on, to the tiny details of meaning and connotation—is bound to read and converse widely and attentively in the forms they love, and to spend time with colleagues and reference materials that track the evolution of our wild language. In this category we include accomplished writers who are unable to engage endlessly with text on a page, but who work in other media and stay alert to language trends and shifts. (That's you, Bad, and you're not alone.)

We've met a few would-be writers who believe their artistic gift will be tainted if they deliberately try to learn more about language—their stock-in-trade. We can't speak for everybody, but we've never heard anyone else go out of their way to avoid learning more about the essential tools of their work.

For more on this question, see our posts Thanks, I think and Grammar go-to.

—The Editors