Why I Don't Want to Be a Grammar Nazi

Okay, let's talk about grammar.

No, wait! Come back!

Variations of this article have been circulating recently. Some of the reporting on the story has made claims like 'these people are destroying our language' and 'I can't believe it! The idiots have won!', and my personal favourite, "the battle for the English language has been lost". My reaction was not any of those.

Stupid kids with their newfangled Norman words. This is why we can't have nice things.

I'm sure you're familiar with the kind of argument I'm going to make. Languages change, or every new Tom Clancy chapter would be opened with 'Hwæt!" (although that could be pretty cool). Linguistic change is not something that can be stopped. It can be shaped, but the number of influences involved and the tendency of speakers to ignore certain influences and authorities while latching onto others makes change hard to engineer. If you're really lucky, you get to be Fowler or Strunk and White, the revered usage guide writers, and have your personal preferences taught to generations of children as gospel truths, creating the new standard. Of course, that doesn't stop all sorts of contradictory information being provided on the topic of grammar, spelling and punctuation. Often your idea of correct grammar is greatly influenced by schoolteachers treating their personal style as 'good grammar', and stupidly archaic 'rules' based on Latin rather than English grammar that have absolutely no effect on comprehension. Interestingly, grammar and usage experience change among language users in spite of these grammatical prescriptions, and we are beautifully creative with our language and grammar, whether it be for art or just kyut lolcats.

Now don't get me wrong -- I fix people's grammar and spelling for a living. I know that there are standards of grammar, and I enforce those standards, but only in certain contexts. Much like the way that you dress up for an interview and may wear an otherwise useless item like a tie, and much like you put a product through QA, a certain standard language is used in some contexts to create the idea of competence and professionalism. One of the hardest lessons for me as someone involved in language teaching and editing was that being a grammar Nazi is not a good thing. Shaming people into using 'correct' grammar and spelling is not helpful, and it is one of the worst approaches to error correction. People do not like listening to people who treat them like idiots. Correction is not the same as shaming. Shaming perpetuates the idea that English (in this case) is hard, and it creates a barrier between you and the person you are trying to help (if that is really your motivation). I will, however, correct the spelling and language of professionals and businesses without any reservations. It makes no sense to me that a company would attempt to impress potential customers with advertising and PR and then not check the quality of those communications.

In the context of the internet, correcting grammar (ironically*, a word that is usually used when 'spelling' is meant) is a well worn method of derailing an argument (You spelt 'your' wrong! Your argument is totally invalid now!). Although this is an irrelevant point where trolls are concerned, snobbery is not really a likable personality trait. Grammar Nazism is also a great way of setting yourself up for embarrassment when you inevitably slip up, or when you are ignorant of a particular construction, spelling or item of usage. It happens. Look, even Stephen Fry, god of language, and Bernard Pivot, who used to run the popular French national dictation competition (yes really), have made typos, spelling and grammatical errors on Twitter. Someone will very gleefully point it out if you do this, especially if the error is made in your correction of someone else's errors. It doesn't help that the more you delve into usage and grammar, as with many objects of study, the more the answer to many issues is 'it depends', rather than a hard and fast rule.

So, after that necessary digression, back to the word 'literally'. If you correct someone's use of the word, it means that you know what they intended. Communication has taken place. And communication is not dependent on which words are 'real dictionary words' accepted by the dictionary lords. Dictionaries describe language; they do not create it. Of course, low prestige usages are marked in such a way that your opinion of the speaker/writer can be affected, but the function of language as a method of communicating information has hardly been eroded by the introduction of a new usage. People are pretty good at interpreting these sorts of things and figuring out what the message was. Unfortunately, they are also really good at picking your word choice and accent apart for clues that can help them to place you in a category, brand you a moron and maybe not give you a certain job or status. Maintaining that sort of social identity is one of the other main functions of language, and it's why a standard form of English is taught to help people to access a more prestigious sector of society. It's not fair, but it happens.

The bottom line is that I'm getting tired of explaining why I am not a gatekeeper of English and why I let so many 'errors' slide. When I do correct usage, it is usually in a professional capacity or ironically, but the joke can fall flat if the people that I am correcting assume that I have a draconian stance on correction. The issue is much more complex than right and wrong. So, please, don't be a dick about it.

*See also: 'literally'.