Grammar Nazism
Posted By Ardellis on June 13, 2007
I got a Friend request over on my MySpace page recently from a group whose whole purpose is to be pedantic about grammar. They even have a cute t-shirt that says “I judge you when you use bad grammar.”
I turned them down.
It’s not that I don’t think grammar is important. I proof-read form letters and web pages as part of my job. When I do that, yes, I am in fact the biggest “grammar nazi” on campus. That’s because the language that we put out in those publications needs to be in an educated, formal register. That’s the face the university needs to present to the public.
And, yes, there are some things that pop up in informal speech that make my hair stand on end. Like saying “I could care less” when what you really mean is exactly the opposite. And there are alternate pronunciations of certain words (such as “nuke-yu-ler”) that make me cringe. The first is an idiom, the second a feature of cetain dialects. Knowing that doesn’t make either any less of a peeve for me.
But none of that means that I disapprove of TXT abbreviations, or slang, or sentence fragments, or the use of “they” as a singular pronoun outside of formal context. Text messages are different from dissertations. Talking to your friends is not the same as talking to a potential employer. Most of us switch gears and use the register and the dialect that’s appropriate to the situation at hand.
And, really, it’s just as rude to insist that people use the academic dialect of English all the time as it is to force them to wear a tuxedo to the county fair. Unless necessity dictates it, people should be allowed to use the language they feel most comfortable with. More than that: they should be allowed to play with it. Language is not just a communication tool, after all. It’s how we express ourselves.
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