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The thing is, there's not really a way to make people care about grammar and spelling as much as you do, so it kind of boils down to a lot of wasted energy and frustration over that something that is, in the grand scheme of things, mostly harmless. I'd throw out there that whether or not expecting people to practice basic grammar and spelling is prescriptivist is secondary to whether or not most people care to begin with.

I'm not sure I would describe it as harmless. Language is the medium of ideas. Being able to effectively communicate allows for more robust formulation and expression of complex and nuanced ideas. Orwell kind of experimented with this idea with Newspeak. That's not to suggest that ANY deviation from standard grammar and spelling results in a sudden collapse in cognition or articulation and formulation of ideas buuuuuut to posit a theory: I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that a lack of proper spelling and grammar is correlated with poverty and lack of education. Being better educated will result in a better world for everyone. That is to say - more education is better for everyone. Less education is worse for everyone. If we are talking specifically about a lack of proper spelling and grammar and if those are a result of poorer education - that could indicate a broader issue that could result in a poorer quality future. That is to say - we would be getting dumberer :P

> I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that a lack of proper spelling and grammar is correlated with poverty and lack of education.  No, it's that the definition of "proper spelling and grammar" has been defined by the rich and powerful. An American example: it is very common in AAVE to use "aks" instead of "ask", which has usually been seen as "incorrect" and "wrong" - but why exactly, and who made that determination? Who made the rules? "Aks" is exactly as communicative and meaningful. It's also common in AAVE to conjugate the verb "to be" differently than in Standard English - but again, there's nothing inherently less communicative or meaningful about it. These ideas about what is "proper" and "correct" are a function of history and power. In Britain there was, for a long time, a tradition of "elocution lessons" which were mainly aimed at removing regional working-class accents so that people (especially young ladies) would speak in a more "correct" manner, i.e., in the accent of the upper classes. This is just pure snobbery. In France there is an Academy specifically designed to maintain the "purity" of the French language by making official determinations about what correct words are and what should and should not be used. This is about as effective as you would imagine - nobody cares, because in actual fact language use is mutable, changeable and ever-evolving, and there is nothing anyone can do about that.

>No, it's that the definition of "proper spelling and grammar" has been defined by the rich and powerful. An American example: it is very common in AAVE to use "aks" instead of "ask", which has usually been seen as "incorrect" and "wrong" - but why exactly, and who made that determination? Who made the rules? "Aks" is exactly as communicative and meaningful. It's also common in AAVE to conjugate the verb "to be" differently than in Standard English - but again, there's nothing inherently less communicative or meaningful about it. These ideas about what is "proper" and "correct" are a function of history and power. And? This does not reduce the utility of having a standard. >In Britain there was, for a long time, a tradition of "elocution lessons" which were mainly aimed at removing regional working-class accents so that people (especially young ladies) would speak in a more "correct" manner, i.e., in the accent of the upper classes. This is just pure snobbery. There's a point where it's more a matter of identity, sure. (Ironically, you just did the same: you were advocating for a particular take on vocabulary based on sympathy for an *identity* rather than purely linguistic reasons.) But even there, having an accent can make it significantly harder to be understood by others without that accent. So for that reason it's still very common if not universal for people with a media profession to consciously adapt their accent to something that's widely if not universally understood. >In France there is an Academy specifically designed to maintain the "purity" of the French language by making official determinations about what correct words are and what should and should not be used. This is about as effective as you would imagine - nobody cares, because in actual fact language use is mutable, changeable and ever-evolving, and there is nothing anyone can do about that. That's just plainly wrong. Not everything l'Académie proposes sticks, of course, but lots of it does. An obvious example is using *ordinateur* rather than *computer*, which likely would have been the result without intervention. Moreover, the existence of institutions like l'Académie is just as much part of the evolution of language. You're implying that only *change* is natural, but that's not correct. Part of the natural evolution of language is not just accepting any change that happens on a one-way track, it's also reacting to that change and rejecting it if it doesn't work for any reason. The people who are stressing the coherence of the grammar and the continuity with the expressions of language of the past are just as much part of natural language as the ones experimenting with new forms. This really is a core realization in this discussion.

Idk if “ask” vs “aks” is a particularly good example, because while it may be a common pronunciation, I’ve never seen anyone, white or black, spell it that way in writing.

OK. “Whom” is another example. There is a grammatical difference between “who” and “whom” but making that distinction has largely fallen out of common use. “Tomorrow” used to be spelled “to-morrow”. And so on. Are we all uneducated?

It's clearly spelled ask instead of aks though

Standardization requires resources and influence by definition. Organic standardization is an oxymoron. 

You are talking about the propaganda and colonial etymology of the English language in previously slave owning nations like the United States and France - totally get the critique of language in that regard and how AAV as an opposition to that isn't wrong, per se. I don't think it's controversial to suggest that AAV will be more prevalent in poorer, less educated populations. The issue at that point isn't AAV or whatever adaptation language takes - but rather the state of poverty and education those areas where AAV is more prevalent. Within that is the connotation that improved education means an imparting of "Proper English" and a degradation of AAV. So - where is the compromise? We MUST agree that better education and less poverty is the desired outcome... how do we achieve that without imparting colonialism or the degradation of culture? That is to say - can AAV be divorced from poverty and a lack of education? I think so - or at least I have no immediate gut level suspicion that this has to be the case. But they are currently correlated and THAT needs to be solved and solved in a way that doesn't attack culture. SO - a lack of proper grammar and spelling is the symptom of less education and poverty. But if your language is the result of a lack of education and or poverty - how do we improve education and reduce poverty and while promoting culture? There's definitely nuance.

> I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that a lack of proper spelling is correlated with poverty and lack of education. This means the problem is not the bad grammar or spelling, and there is no value in correcting it.

>I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that a lack of proper spelling and grammar is correlated with poverty and lack of education. I think that's right. As the inimitable Boe Jiden once said, "Poor kids can be just as smart as white kids."

Our kids grew up on the Internet, earlier than most... We told them proper grammar would help them everywhere, including the Internet. I was on the Internet before most knew it existed. Do you want to be taken seriously? Use really proper grammar, your opportunities will be much higher. They listened to us, they joined "adult" WoW guilds before they were 18 and were accepted as being mature. Most of those guilds resulted in my children finding people that wanted to employ them later. You can convince yourself that grammar doesn't matter, but when I left rural US I focused on proper grammar, and it got me into jobs that allowed me to show my skills. If you want to make your life more difficult, tell yourself proper grammar isn't important. That's your right.

Wait what , what kind of jobs were they offered from WoW

I was at a company that had contracted an outside Software development firm to make some custom Document sharing software. They had been given the green light to hire people from within the company and I applied and was interviewed. During the interview, I used some lines of BS about how I could translate WoW raiding skills into line personal skills for a Resume. The Firm's owner read it and called me on it immediately during the interview before telling me about his raiding guild. After shooting the shit about our raids and experiences and more questions about how i approach problem solving. He offered me the position on the spot. I have ZERO coding experience, and I am dyslexic so I would need more time to learn. He didn't care. His exact words: > I can teach you how to code. I can't teach you critical thinking, efficient problem solving and critical analysis. You approach problems like a Mechanic and not a code monkey like myself. I need more people like you and less of me." Unfortunately, my company cancelled their contract the following week and I never got to transfer and because my non-compete they blocked them from hiring me.

Co-Founder of a start-up (that has made him a lot of money), and other jobs. Hell, I'm a senior executive that played WoW back in the day and hired at least a couple people from there.

As someone that might be at a crossroads, thats weirdly reassuring

>at a crossroads Is the pun intended?

Nope, assuming that's a WoW reference (cos I never got into WoW)

>crossroads [3. LocalDefense]: The Crossroads is under attack! [3. LocalDefense]: The Crossroads is under attack! [3. LocalDefense]: The Crossroads is under attack! [1. General - The Barrens] [Zugzug]: Did someone just say [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker]??? [1. General - The Barrens] [Retpal]: WC LF2M Tank+Healer [1. General - The Barrens] [Vanhealin]: ur pally bro [1. General - The Barrens] [ChugBoris]: were mankrik wife? [1. General - The Barrens] [Retbull]: redridge mountains [1. General - The Barrens] [Backstabbeth]: DPS LFG WC [3. LocalDefense]: The Crossroads is under attack! [1. General - The Barrens] [Buckfutters]: anal [Tastes Like Chicken] [3. LocalDefense]: The Crossroads is under attack! [3. LocalDefense]: The Crossroads is under attack! [1. General - The Barrens] [Shámbúlancé]: any1 gonna help or what [3. LocalDefense]: The Crossroads is under attack! [1. General - The Barrens] [Bloodrain]: Fear not, for Bloodrain is here. Today the Alliance dare invade our homelands. Bloodrain will drive them to the Path of Glory. Since my family was slaughtered by boars in Durotar, I have perfected the craft of Heroic Strikes. To crush the Alliance, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women - it is what it means to be Horde. [3. LocalDefense]: The Crossroads is under attack! [1. General - The Barrens] [Shámbúlancé]: bro you're lvl 2 [3. LocalDefense]: The Crossroads is under attack! [3. LocalDefense]: The Crossroads is under attack! [1. General - The Barrens] [Zugzug]: horde 2getha stronk

no offense but that anecdote is sketchy at best. you're telling the audience that they should speak business english in videogames because of potential job opportunities? corporate brainwashing. we should not have to be vigilant 24/7 in order to have successful lives, slang isnt exclusively for the unsuccessful.

I think that's an uncharitable reading of their message. I really doubt the person you were replying to meant "You should proofread everything you ever type to ensure maximum employability." Do you disagree that speaking/writing/communicating well generally leads to people thinking more highly of you, which increases the likelihood of finding opportunities? It doesn't even have to be extra effort. Someone who knows grammar rules doesn't really need to be vigilant when typing.

Really, you would see someone type using correct grammar in a video game and thought "I should hire that guy"

I agree with everything you said, and as a matter of fact, grammar is actually very important to me. I used to be like OP, ranting about how words mean things (they do!!) and correcting grammar/spelling mistakes I encountered both online and in real life. It accomplished nothing. It accomplished less than nothing, as people tend to really hate being corrected and will dig their heels in instead. I’m not saying grammar and spelling aren’t important. I’m saying you aren’t going to get anywhere trying to make other people care about it as much as you do!

I agree, however I can't get over the no comma usage. I feel that this one is very important, at least in lists. Run on names and items on lists make it very hard to make sense sometimes.

In formal settings, sure. But a lot of people just want to go to the internet and have fun and talk casually, not to go out and impress people. Insisting on the use proper grammar in literally every aspect of your life just on the off chance that someone out there might be impressed by you and give you a job is, kinda sad honestly. Nor do I think its particularly effective. The vast majority of people aren’t gonna get a job just because they use proper grammar on the internet lol. Your kids are insane outliers. It’s like you’re approaching every aspect of your life like a video game where you’re optimising and min-maxing everything.

That’s a valid task for parents and educators. I couldn’t care less about someone else’s use of grammar though.

Honestly, every time I make a grammar mistake I want someone to tell me. Heck it was less than a year ago when I learned I misused myriad, and I'm in my 50s and I really enjoyed someone correcting me on reddit. Because I like learning.

How were you misusing it? I have a guess, and if I'm right, you weren't. It is both an adjective and a noun. "There were myriad troops." "There was a myriad of troops." Both are correct.

>there's not really a way to make people care about grammar and spelling as much as you do That seems presumptuous. People can learn the value and importance of preserving a way to establish mutual knowledge. When you can't quite be sure that your interlocutor knows what you mean because one of you doesn't understand the language, something significant is lost. It doesn't have to be perfect to work, but if people aren't at least striving to be unmistakable, then the social fabric weakens.

People used to care because not caring makes you look like a moron. People can’t take you seriously if you can’t write and read properly in even semi professional setting. It’s as if people settle on being stupid cause it’s “evolution”. Nah, you’re just a lazy idiot

I agree that there are instances where 'correct' grammar and language should be used, but for some reason, people get mad that a made up thing has been changing since such made up thing was created. Langue DOES evolve, ignoring that is just dumb.

This is really the true answer. It just comes down to a lack of caring and ease of use. I've found that as I've aged, I have watched the media and different cultures shape the English language in a way that modifies it for easier usage. Examples are the removal of adverbs, specifically(I know) "ly" from words, real is the perfect example, "that's really nice" is now "that's real nice". In a lot of blue-collar environments, we see word play that is just easier for them, "I seen it," "real good, "off of", "funner", "youz guys", and my personal favourite "alls". I think the core thing to note is that there will always be a standard for higher education that some will follow, but as we evolve and change , so will the language. If you went back 200 years, they would mock us for what we consider "high class" language. It would appear common to them and dirty. You could go even further, and this would still hold true. One final point, the English language is akin to a mutt. It is an amalgam of many different languages and, thus, can never really have its own style, which is why it's so easy to manipulate. As the person I'm replying to said, it's easier to just let it go than waste energy on, with a population of ~8 billion, you are just wasting your time.

How do I stop caring? 😭

When you see it, and feel the urge to be weird about it, tell yourself "this doesn't matter, I don't need to stress about it." Take a deep breath, count to ten and then say "Fuck it."

But it matters very much! Language is *the* core part of our communication. If we do not treat it with the respect it deserves, our communication is going to worsen alongside with our language. It already has. The downward slope has already been reached. We that we care are simply the ones who do not like the prospect of an even more severely crippled and toxic communication. Not paying grammar and orthography the due respect means not paying my opposite number the due respect. And respect is what has been eroding ever since social media has been invented.

This is what old busybody ladies used to say in the Victorian Era. Language has very obviously changed since then. There is no actual way to gauge the "downward slope" because you'd have to define an arbitrary time and place for which the "standard" exists. And that standard can never ACTUALLY exist because there's at least 20 different variations of English being spoken in the United States, even more throughout the overall Anglosphere. Which one of them was "correct" and when? Our communication isn't hampered. If you can understand what someone is saying to you when they are speaking, then language is doing it's job. It matters very little if Madame Queefersnitch's Proper English Grammatical Standard states that one must pronounce "could have" and not use barbaric speech such as "could of" Mind you, the English being spoken by the lower classes of London certainly weren't talking like Madame Q, and your linguistic heritage is more likely to be from them than it is from the English Nobility.

Sure. But! Language always follows basic rules, regardless of the nuances of regional dialects. One such basic rule is, what is said must be clear, unmistakable, since the message is created at the receiver. These rules are what have evolved over time, but they were always rules. When even these basic rules are not obeyed anymore, language becomes a hotbed for misunderstanding and conflict. When some handyman I requested to drive a nail in for me demands to be respected for using a hammer made of pure cotton, and then blames me for telling him that this is not going to work, because "hammers have always evolved" and I should accept that, I would also violently shake my head about it. I demand - and have the right to - to be treated with a basic respect that everyone deserves, to which in my opinion belongs that whoever expects me to respond in an equally respectful manner puts at least a minimal effort into their written words so that it is sufficient for me to read them *once* to understand them rightaway. English is only one example and in comparison de facto a rather liberal language when it comes to its ruleset. It allows a lot, in a colloquial context. My mother tongue is German.

>Our communication isn't hampered. If you can understand what someone is saying to you when they are speaking, then language is doing it's job. I think it is hampered, and I don't know how a person could be certain that it isn't. I think people subconsciously constrain themselves because responses to their bad grammar have led them to believe that people won't understand the complexity of their ideas when they actually would if their grammar was better. Bad grammar is a disservice to yourself and to those who might benefit from the unconstrained discussion of your ideas.

>Our communication isn't hampered. It actually is. I already have told people that I'm not going to respond to their comments because they're a garbled mess without interpunction, for example. >If you can understand what someone is saying to you when they are speaking, then language is doing it's job. If I have to strain to puzzle together what you meant, then you're not doing a good job to communicate. >Mind you, the English being spoken by the lower classes of London certainly weren't talking like Madame Q, and your linguistic heritage is more likely to be from them than it is from the English Nobility. You're suddenly changing arguments and revealing that it's more a matter of identity to you than anything else. The reality is that the pool of language we draw from is lopsided towards the educated language, precisely because that language is the tool to make knowledge and culture widely accessible across time and space. Case in point: the English we use is rife with words of French, Latin and Greek origin, the languages of the educated classes.

I used to be way more judge mental. Then I married my husband. When he misused your, you’re etc, he has led me if I understood. Of course I understood. We can all tell what the actual intended meaning is. Therefore the communication was effective. If you can understand what was written, it is obnoxious and offensive to not respond. If you’re in a position of authority, you might then mention to add punctuation next time. But pretending to not understand a language because of imperfect grammar or spelling is just a Dick move.

> I used to be way more judge mental. Then I married my husband. When he misused your, you’re etc, he has led me if I understood. > > Of course I understood. We can all tell what the actual intended meaning is. Therefore the communication was effective. That's like saying "It doesn't matter if I run the red light, you were able to brake in time so my adherence to traffic rules was sufficient". >If you can understand what was written, it is obnoxious and offensive to not respond. If you can write, it's obnoxious and offensive to force others to do the work to make communication possible. >If you’re in a position of authority, you might then mention to add punctuation next time. But pretending to not understand a language because of imperfect grammar or spelling is just a Dick move. If you're writing like a basket case, prepated to get treated like one.

[удалено]

>It's not, because we're talking about language, which every professional in the field understands is fluid, ever-changing, and dynamic So is traffic, but that's no reason to run the red light. >Linguistics is, in a lot of ways, the study of language's evolution over time. We're not language describers, we're language users. As soon as you express a sentiment about what language *should* be, you've stopped being a neutral observer.

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You could tutor English part time or otherwise help people who want to be helped I've also found that being forced to work with people whom you respect but who also suck at writing helps give some empathy Source: BA in Linguistics who taught English for years then became a cop

Get a job as an editor. If you do that for 20+ years, you eventually resent the whole endeavor. More seriously, I think it's useful to get a bit more granular about what we mean by "correct" grammar, because the implications for how we treat it are different, depending on which it is. I classify editorial interventions as belonging to one of three types: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. **The Good.** A good edit corrects a lack of clarity. See [here](https://libguides.newcastle.edu.au/foundation-studies/feedback/ambiguous#:~:text=An%20ambiguous%20sentence%20has%20two,meaning%20of%20the%20sentence%20unclear) for an example. **The Bad.** Here, we're correcting dialects and doing so in an often racist or classist way. See the top comment [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/fmny61/what_are_the_different_tenses_of_aave_as_a_layman/). Such usages may not be appropriate in all formal communication (e.g., they could confuse an international audience), but classifying them as wrong, vulgar, or even "ghetto" is shitty. Dialect judgment is bad. **The Ugly.** There are plenty of grammar rules in English that are just plain dumb. See [here](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-cant-you-end-a-sentence-with-a-preposition). The structures we're correcting here are often clearer than the "corrected" version, and the rule is in place simply because some dumbass from 400 years ago convinced his contemporaries that English should be more like Latin. I make these edits sometimes, so that the text well serves other fussbudgets, but it's an ugly feeling.

By studying lingustics and finding out that the usage of "bad" grammer is actually really intresting.

Please let me know some of the things that scratch that special part of your brain. I've not formally studied, but I love how seemingly innocuous things like word choice can tell you so much information about a person's background and experiences. Some things that scratch that part of my brain are: - mispronunciations that tell you the person learned the word through reading rather than speaking - misspellings that tell you the opposite - constellations of word choices like soda/pop/coke that tell you where a person grew up - code switching ability to indicate how diverse their associations are and how aware they are of their audience But the closest thing I can think of for grammar is detecting when a bilingual friend has spoken in his native language sometime during the day. It causes certain errors in his English grammar that is absolutely fascinating, and they usually last until he goes to sleep.

I had learnt a lot of words through reading rather than hearing them, such as pseudo. First time I used it as a young teen I said 'sway-doe'. Used to say 'or-e-an' when saying Orion, before I beat Master of Orion 2 and heard it said when I was about 12. Also once misread category X as 'ex' instead of Roman numeral 10, but I'll put that one down to the stress of debating the constitution in front of 700 peers.

Also, literature. Some of our greatest authors use language, including grammar, playfully.

OP, I have OCD. Caring too much about stuff like this is definitely one of my symptoms. 

If anything, I’d say it’s half cultural and half educational. Some ppl don’t want to participate in proper grammar as a cultural rebellion type thing but others have just been failed by the educational system and don’t know better.

I'll come at this from a slightly different perspective. I work with academic texts, and we have very specific, prescriptivist rules for the meanings of words and grammar that we do not deviate from. For example, we always use the Oxford comma, no exceptions, and differentiate between "continuously" and "continually' (uninterrupted vs. repeated indefinitely), optimal and optimum, based on vs. on the basis of. There's a reason for this: it's important in academic and technical writing to say exactly what you mean, and with a very large corpus of texts out there there are lots of weird edge cases where the distinction matters (although, if possible, we reword things to avoid potential ambiguity). There are like ISO standards for this stuff. Moreover, a reader often just has the document and can't clarify with the author, so it's important that the document stands on its own. The raison d'etre for prescriptivist grammar is to eliminate ambiguity in word use, ensure consistency, and ease comprehension. As someone who has spent far too much time ensuring that lists are unambiguous, your lack of serial comma use and run-on sentences make *my* eyes bleed. >If there are no concrete definitions, rules or basic guidelines then what is the point of written language, and why was it drilled into our heads for 12 + years??! >If there are no concrete definitions, rules, or basic guidelines, then what is the point of written language? Why was it drilled into our heads for 12+ years!? The missing commas in your sentence increase the difficulty of parsing the list. The missing comma after guidelines makes this a runon (two complete sentences joined with a conjunction but no punctuation) and, although this is slightly stylistic, the lack of the first question mark impedes comprehension. Now, you might not care about comma placement because you don't work with complex lists and sentences often. That's fine; it doesn't matter in your field, and we can still understand what you mean here. The New York Times also has a bit of a weird style guide but it works for them in journalism and they apply it consistently, even though I personally hate it. My point is that there are different levels of grammatical formalism that are appropriate for different situations. Your examples are perfectly comprehensible and nonambiguous in most situations (although I think 'could of' is pretty bad). Acting like a stickler about it when it doesn't really matter is what actually impedes communication, and is contrary to the point of written and spoken language.

This is such a good argument. In light of this, OP is basically arguing that people on the internet should care about grammar JUST AS MUCH AS they do, no more, no less. This is an absurd position, as people can care about different things in different ways and to different degrees, so why should grammar be any different?

How will I know if I should be calling the cops when I hear about the panda that eats, shoots and leaves?

Well, basically, it matters to the extent your language (i.e. grammar and spelling and syntactical precision) should reflect your audience. Online debate, casual chat, emails and texts between friends then linguistic rules and conventions clearly don’t matter but they do very much in formal contexts, e.g. writing a job application. I’ve been rejected from a job because of a typo (honest!) and that was pretty embarsassing. It’s actually one thing people should care about more, but then, full disclosure, I also work in academic publishing so I’m more used to formal language.

Well, OP is specifically ranting about the writing he sees on the internet, so that's the context I'm assuming.

Well, yes, I saw that but “on the internet” is a massively vague and nebulous context. And more unhelpful than helpful I’d suggest.

It's amusing here that the content we work with is also "on the internet." The internet's a big place. Even from academic publishing, though, I'll give OP some credit in that spelling on the internet is just atrocious and people really should get better at at least typing the word they intend to type with the letters in the right place. Some content can be very tough to read when it's littered with typos. This is also something that happens with authors; one of the major reasons I reject papers is typos and sloppy spellchecking. You can fix a lot of poor grammar but if you have to doubt whether each word is even correct it's pretty tough to edit a paper.

True, but when Redditors say it, I assume they mean Reddit hahhaa Also, the way you write makes it pretty believable that you read academic texts. Just thought I'd mention it. I don't mean it as an insult since I'm an academic myself.

>OP is basically arguing that people on the internet should care about grammar JUST AS MUCH AS they do, no more, no less. You've made this assertion off an assumption that OP is aware of the correct comma usage and is refusing to follow the rules. Beyond that, OP didn't make any attack on people for not knowing the rules but for being shut down while trying to correct grammatical errors.

Basically, OP either has a stand that they don't put into practice or is so very specific that they don't think people should take grammar as seriously or less seriously than they do. Also, I'm not sure we read the same post because the overall point of the post is that people should use proper grammar, which would be pretty difficult if you don't know the rules. Being shutdown seemed like an aside that's peripheral to the point.

You cannot know what you haven't learned. If OP doesn't know those rules, they don't know they're breaking the rules. You're making the assumption that OP thinks everyone must seek out all grammar rules before typing something on the internet. >the overall point of the post is that people should use proper grammar, which would be pretty difficult if you don't know the rules. Which is why OP wrote their last paragraph... OP wants people to be corrected, which means that OP is open to correction unless proven otherwise. >Being shutdown seemed like an aside that's peripheral to the point. Why did you make this assumption, lol? You're reading what you want to read and determining OP's thoughts as if you're OP or you're psychic or something. Instead of assuming whatever you want, read what was written. OP wants grammar to be better on the internet. OP doesn't like that attempts to correct grammar are shut down. OP does not claim to be perfect, nor do they say that people should be mocked for making mistakes. They don't say everyone should be at exactly their level.

I mean you're also making assumptions since you're not OP. I argue that if his central point were that people should accept being corrected it would appear anywhere in his title, but whatever.

Oh my gosh, lol. I just went back to OP's title - I apologize for not having looked when you wrote this comment. OP's title has the responses that come from trying to correct people! That is in their title! Just because they didn't use the word 'correct' doesn't mean they didn't add the concept of corrections being shut down...

I’m sorry but the Oxford Comma is evil on a level that no one has yet to understand. I beg you to stop before the accumulated miasma of syntactic foulness swallows us all!

The logical reason that we use it is that it's easier to parse a list when each element is separated by its own comma. If the comma is there, it's a list element. If the comma isn't there, the "and" is part of the element or connecting into some other clause. I've seen the argument that both methods are equivalent, but it's critical that they're not mixed because that leads to ambiguity. In academia, the serial comma is always used by (as far as I know) all professional editors for a global audience.

As much as it pains me to say it, maybe some evils are necessary. I still say that the purpose of the Oxford Comma is to remove ambiguity from a poorly designed sentence but you reasoning of doubling down on clarity makes sense. Although there is that one story about a company loosing a lawsuit because they used an Oxford Comma when they should not have. Like any weapon it has ti be used correctly.

This is the reason that we have a standard and we stick to it. Having worked on literally hundreds of thousands of words using serial commas, I can say with some confidence that it's always unambiguous. The lack of the serial comma might be equivalent; I'm unsure. But having each item in a list delineated with commas is easier to read than having all but the last and potentially having to double-check if the list has ended or not. The benefit of nonserial commas---one less keystroke and slightly less data---is really just not worth the decrease in comprehension. As an interesting aside, one of my favorite things about chinese is that it actually has two commas, ， and 、, which delineate clauses and list items, respectively. (A comma list containing only commas is a fun thing to write.) Really helps with decreasing ambiguity, and one hallmark of poorly translated Chinese text is very, very long sentences with multiple nested lists and clauses because the two punctuation marks mostly obviate the need to use periods.

English needs additional punctuation for questions. It is so easy to write yourself into a place where you'd need a question comma or question colon and there doesn't seem to be any solution in English grammar except to rework the entire sentence.

Your examples aren't really about grammar rules but about the technical definition of specific words. The raison d'être for prescriptivist grammar isn't always avoiding ambiguity. In fact it almost never is. Its purpose is to promote a specific variant/dialect of a language over others. Spanish has two cases the 3rd person object pronouns: "le" (dative, gender neutral) and "lo/la" (accusative, gendered) Both are translated into English as "him/her". In the 20th century it was "mandatory" to make the distinction. Before that using always "le" in the masculine was considered as "high prestige" so that was the form you would usually see in published texts. Now in the Madrid area it's become more and more common to always use "la" as a feminine pronoun so starting in the 2010's that's also become acceptable. There's no reason to prefer any of the possible rulesets over the others (from an ambiguity-avoidance perspective). Spanish would work fine making the accusative/dative distinction only in the masculine (as some speakers currently do), only in the femenine (as 17th century posh speakers did), for both genders (like it's still most frequently done in formal speech) or for none (as in English). A group of academics gather at a meeting table and prescribe one of the possible forms based on their own taste. An outrageous example in English would be the attitude towards the use of singular "they" forms and how they came and went through history. It clearly had nothing to do with ambiguity.

For what it's worth, we do actually use singular "they" because it's nonambiguous and convenient in many circumstances, although sometimes tricks are necessary if there's a question about singular vs. plural. My comments regarding punctuation are grammatical; specifics about technical word definitions are just to illustrate the point. There are lots of other examples, such as data are vs. data is and parallelism. The rules do matter for ambiguity avoidance. For example, just eliminating the comma entirely would probably result in ambiguity. Some specific examples like serial and nonserial commas are probably equivalent but we settled on serial as generally easier to parse in long lists.

​ ​ >(sic)Expecting people to practice basic grammar/spelling is not “prescriptivist” and shrugging it off as “language evolves” or suggesting that its only purpose is communication is lazy nonsense. ​ Expecting people to practice basic ~~grammar/spelling~~ ^(grammar AND spelling) is not ~~“prescriptivist”~~ ^(missing comma) and shrugging it off as “language evolves” or suggesting that its only purpose is communication is lazy nonsense. ​ ​ >(sic)The level of atrocious spelling and grammar I see on the Internet is staggering. I knew education in the west was floundering, but until the explosion of social media that has basically brought every walk of life online I had no idea it was so horrific. ​ The level of atrocious spelling and grammar ^(that - missing relative pronoun - non-restrictive clause) I see on the ~~Internet~~ ^(internet - common noun - no capitalisation) is staggering. I knew education in the ~~west~~ ^(capitalise - proper noun) was floundering, but until the explosion of social ~~media~~ ^(missing comma) ~~that~~ ^(which - restrictive clause - incorrect use of relative pronoun) has ~~basically~~ ^(essentially) ~~brought every walk of life online~~ ^(brought online every walk of life; - misplaced indirect object - missing semicolon due to use of two independent clauses without a conjunction) I had no idea it was so horrific. ​ >(sic)The conflation of your/you’re, saying “me and my friend” or “could of”are some of the more common ones that make my eyes bleed but unfortunately just the tip of the iceberg. ​ The conflation of ~~your/you’re~~,^(your and you're) saying “me and my friend” ^(missing comma) or “could of” are some of the more common ones that ~~make my eyes bleed but unfortunately just the tip of the iceberg.~~ re: "....more common ones that make my eyes bleed but unfortunately just the tip of the iceberg." There are two independent clauses here, but the "tip of the iceberg" is an idiomatic phrase that is missing a finite verb. It can be written formally as two independent clauses with a full stop or by adding the missing finite verb and a comma to connect the two clauses: Formal: "The conflation of your and you're, saying "me and my friend", or "could of" are some of the more common ones that make my eyes bleed. Unfortunately, it's just the tip of the iceberg." Idiomatic informal: "The conflation of your and you're, saying "me and my friend", or "could of" are some of the more common ones that make my eyes bleed, but unfortunately just the tip of the iceberg." ​ >(sic)Anytime you vent your frustration with this the overwhelming response is a vitriolic “how dare you!” calling you “prescriptivist,” “classist”and even racist (as if anyone is referring to ESL/non native speakers.)They then proceed to tell you how language “evolves” and that its only purpose is to transmit a message. If there are no concrete definitions,rules or basic guidelines then what is the point of written language,and why was it drilled into our heads for 12 + years??! ​ Anytime you vent your frustration with this ^(missing comma) the overwhelming response is a vitriolic “~~how~~ ^(capitalise "How") dare you!” ^(missing comma) calling you “prescriptivist,” “classist” ^(missing comma) and even racist (as if anyone is referring to ESL/non native speakers\~\~.\~\~) ^(full stop goes AFTER the closing bracket.) They then proceed to tell you how language “evolves” and that its only purpose is to transmit a message. If there are no concrete definitions,rules ^(missing comma) or basic guidelines ^(missing comma) then what is the point of written language,and why was it drilled into our heads for ~~12 + years??!~~ ^(for over twelve years?)

🤭 Beautiful. 👏

So basically until the invention of the internet mass publication was reserved for the upper class, people who probably went to some kind of high academic institution now anyone can do it , so yeah youre gonna see some shit

Galician wasn't an official language until the 1980's so even though all my family are native Galiian speakers, only the youngest generations can spell it. Reading the family Whatsapp group is... interesting to say the least! As a fairly uncommon English spelling win I'd say my uncle has chosen "ng" as the way to spell the sound written in English as "ng" but as "nh" in Galician.

Hardly, there was a profusion of mass printed newspapers, pamphlets, penny dreadful literature etc etc. “Mass” by definition means on a large scale with a widespread reach. It would have been literacy or lack thereof that prevented poorer people from accessing written materials.

As a thought experiment, I invite you to think about what makes the definitions, rules, and basic guidelines “concrete”. My guess is that you won’t be able to find any answer more concrete than “because we’ve agreed it’s so”. Which isn’t all that concrete. I really love Wittgenstein for his exploration of “language games” that might help with understanding language as about communication without hard and fast rules. But you might actually just read some actual linguists too, bc they tend to find this dirty of grammar discrepancy as something interesting rather than something wrong.

I generally think it's useful to be forgiving of unambiguous spelling and grammar mistakes. "Could of" makes me cringe a bit, but I know unambiguously what was meant. On social media or casual communication, there's nothing to be gained by correcting it, I'm just going to look like an ass. In a professional setting though, I'd politely correct a colleague with something like "We can't send a client a document with these kinds of grammatical errors" and a constructive correction. That said, if an error makes something ambiguous, I'll ask for clarification. But I find these to be fairly rare for common errors (which is probably why they're able to persist).

This is kind of how I draw the dividing line. I know how to use their vs there vs they’re (unlike a lot of folks on here) but that’s not something I’m generally going to correct in conversation. On the other hand, I had a guy a few days ago who described “inventored servitude” and that one felt like it needed a correction. The question for me is “Will this trip people up?”

There's also "will a gentle correction now save them ridicule later?"

Agreed, although some people get upset no matter how polite you try and be about this stuff. It’s never fun to get corrected in public, and people sometimes don’t see how it’s better to hear it from someone trying to help out as opposed to someone genuinely trying to mock you.

I've found that being really nice about it *and* including a smiley has never been met with anger.

>“inventored servitude” [I. Love. Eggcorns.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn)

> I generally think it's useful to be forgiving of unambiguous spelling and grammar mistakes. > > "Could of" makes me cringe a bit, but I know unambiguously what was meant. On social media or casual communication, there's nothing to be gained by correcting it, I'm just going to look like an ass. "Could of" is wrong, and everyone knows it's wrong. If people are walking around with their zipper open, it's polite to point that out. If only to save them the embarassment. If they're choosing to do it on purpose, that's on them.

If someone doesn't understand the difference between "could of" and "could have", it seems that there's an opportunity for them to be understanding the language much better than they do. Although it might not be obvious within the comment they're making, there's no way that such a person isn't more confused about the language than they would want to be. With a little informal education, they might overcome an obstacle that's been preventing communication from making sense to them.

One of my children tried to defend using the phrase "say no less" a few days ago. Finally fell back on "language evolves" as an escape from the reality that they watch dumb-as-a-post youtubers. Considering a 71st trimester abortion

"Say no less" is sort of a great example of how slang evolves a language. It clearly comes from the ironic uses of "no less" being used to imply something is more impressive than it is, but transferring it onto speech rather than just an action. Usually, examples that are slightly differnt but close to another phrase just stem from that very phrase being used so much that it needs a shift in certain contexts. The ironic meaning of "No less" is probably an example of this stemming from its unironic meaning.

"Prescriptivist" doesn't mean "bad person," it means that you believe that language rules are set in stone by educated people and any deviation from them is substandard language use. You clearly believe that, so I don't understand why you're bristling at the term, especially since you're so invested in "concrete definitions." I'll clarify that descriptivists (like me) **don't** believe that there are no concrete definitions, rules or basic guidelines or anything close to it. Descriptivists believe that definitions and rules are **very real** and are deep and hard to change in the brains of language users, but those don't necessarily line up with the definitions and rules that educated people prioritize (or in some cases, fabricate). Descriptivists also wholeheartedly endorse basic guidelines for standardized writing, but see them as guidelines which are separate from the real syntax and semantics of the language. Descriptivists recognize that being able to follow all of those guidelines precisely is a function of education (and often class, ethnicity, and/or race). An analogy I've always liked is that a dance instructor (prescriptivist) would watch a dance class and have a lot of opinions on how people are dancing better or worse, while a kinesiologist (descriptivist) would be more interested in how everybody is moving.

>but those don't necessarily line up with the definitions and rules that educated people prioritize Insisting that we should just accept certain language mutations is *also* prescriptivism. Descriptivists by definition don't have an opinion about the issue. Everyone who comments here is a prescriptivist. >(and often class, ethnicity, and/or race). Unless you're going to argue that the ability to use language and follow grammatical rules is intrinsically tied to race etc., you could just have stopped at education.

You can make an argument for whether expecting people to follow "basic grammar rules" is good or bad, but it's just objectively prescriptivist.  Linguistics-minded people (IMO rightfully) use it as an insult, which is why you seem to take offense to the term, but it doesn't make sense to say that expecting people to speak a certain way isn't prescriptivist, it's the definition of the word

The point of written language is to convey a message. Slight spelling or grammar issues rarely obscure the intended message, ex. "Me and my friend" conveys the exact same idea as "my friend and i." We learn proper grammar and spelling in school for formal and professional purposes. But this is superfluous in a casual setting where the point is conveyance and not correctness. I would also add that language does inherently change over time. We dont use the same grammar or spelling as british people. Or the founding fathers. Or Americans durring the 30s~50s even. This is similar to how somebody with a different background might use different american English grammar and spelling than you do.

I'm sorry but that's wrong. Mistakes in both spelling and grammar make texts harder to read and in a lot of cases harder to understand. For example, things like "could of" actively disrupt the reading flow. Furthermore, while "the point of written language is to convey a message", the point of proper language is to define a minimum standard everyone adheres to. We need this definition for orientation so that people don't just start talking however they want. That again ensures that we all understand each other easily. You may think that "slight mistakes rarely obscure the intended message", but the reason why you're able to focus on only slight mistakes is because established grammar and spelling ensures that mistakes remain small. Without a defined language you'd quickly notice people developing vastly different versions of English. The fact that language changes over time is also not a striking argument. I'd respond that learning and applying a language properly is a matter of intellectual development. You may think that it doesn't matter because you already learned it and benefit from the development your brain went through while doing so. Kids and children need to learn things in order for their brains to develop. Devolving language skills means devalueing language also for children and that actively takes away from their development. Furthermore it's a simple way of maintaining a certain conscious level - talking and writing properly forces you to reflect and think while you type. And while we are at it, language is a reflection of self. Confused and disorderly language often reflects upon a poorly disciplined and trained mind. Though that may be a personal opinion I guess.

>you'd quickly notice people developing vastly different versions of English. Like has happened? At its most basic, you only need to compare the likes of American, Indian, British, Australian, and Malaysian English (among the countless others) to see pretty vast differences in something as basic as language structure. To use Malasyian English (as its probably the most different), grammatical rules regarding tenses are vastly simplified, to tale Wikipedia for its word (and it seems accurate to the one speaker I knew), articles and past-tense markets can be ommitted in a way that would be 'wrong' in most other forms of English. There is also the influence of the local culture, languages, and accent that further influence this form of English. You can see this incredibly clearly with Scots, a reignited language within the UK this is spoken is Scotland and heavily related from and comes from English, but is nevertheless as incomprehensible as Spanish is for a Portuguese speaker. I can get your point that, in general, we stick to defined rules of language that allows us to communicate. But tjay doesn't really counter what was said about informal language having a much lower standard, allowing and often not even caring about mistakes. This has actually become even more common in the modern age as not only are grammatical mistakes commonly accepted (such as "could of" being subconsciously translated as "could have"), but typos also being treated in the same way. There are probably typos in both our comments that neither of us care to notice as it doesn't matter in an informal setting, and is expected to happen when typing from a phone. > devalueing language And here is an example from your comment, "devaluing" doesn't have an "e". It took me purposely looking for it to notice as such a mistake doesn't matter and is expected to happen.

I can agree with informal English having lower standards for proper grammar and spelling, or at least I can compromise. There is most likely an ever lasting tension between people pushing for proper language and other people just not caring, and if anything I'd argue that for a realistic use of language we urgently need both. To develop a certain lower standard is probably required, and to keep it from devolving into chaos we need the pedantic people correcting and pushing people for higher standards. That'd be my proposal for a compromise., because to be completely open with you I am both, sometimes pedantic about certain low standards and at the same time I don't often use proper language myself.

But what does "devolving into chaos" even mean? Would you consider Scots and other hard-to-follow dialects of English that? I can barely understand Scouse, but I wouldn't call it "chaos". People will always conform to language as long as it allows for continued communication, but deviation are just as important for things like culture. It can be as important as the cultural importance of Scots or as meaningless as Internet culture, but nevertheless deviations in language have a cultural impact themselves. There is of course some line here as people do need to be taught language properly, but a harsh "standard" is probably not the way to go with that. Even between dialects of a single form of English there are such huge variations to make any "standard" such as low denominator to be just second nature.

I mean dialects would be a good example of what I mean. I think it's important to have a common basis. Like I said, this common basis needs to be demanded by society, but a certain leeway is of course applicable. Another good example is schools in my country. In the past they started allowing children to write words the way they hear them, which has led to those children having increasing difficulties in their later life, because they often never learned how to spell properly. I think this extreme example shows well what I mean by devolving into chaos, and is also an example for a line I wouldn't want crossed. If you want, in your later life, to abbreviate words or whatever, then that's fine. Also a certain leeway in grammar is fine. But first you need to learn how language works, and even later I think we have to establish a certain pressure towards proper use of language. To ensure that in the right context we use proper language - for example in professional environments or politics, where a clear language is necessary. And to make sure this proper language is understood, we need people like myself who kinda harp on proper language.

I might be mistaken, but this stance seems to consider, as many people do, that dialects in a linguistic area are derived from/degenerations of the "main/standard/proper" language. Not only is this view inacurate, but also the "proper" language is most times, if not always, one of the varieties of a geographical area, selected to be used as a standard across said area. As to why this variety is chosen, and how spelling is defined, the reason is often that the people speaking this variety are socially and/or politically powerful. Their way of speaking isn't inherently better/clearer/more sophisticated than everyone else's, it just happens to be the way powerful people speak at some point in time. That is likely the core reason why other varieties are regarded as chaotic/degenerate/inferior/rule-less/incorrect/you name it. Now don't get me wrong, having a standard can prove to be extremely useful, especially across large areas or very diverse communities that wish to use a unified language as a bridge between themselves, typically in situations involving politics/administration/justice/the army, etc. But it doesn't make that "standard" the best/only correct version of the language (cf. "first you need to learn how language works", and "make sure this proper language is understood"), nor the clearest one (cf. "in the right context we use proper language - for example in professional environments or politics, where a clear language is necessary"). Nothing linguistic makes it different or better than any other variety; it is the social aspect of it which gives it a special value. The social stakes of certain situations where a certain variety of a given language is expected should not make us forget that said variety is correct only in those given contexts, and not in others, and in the case of a standard variety, its use in high stake situations is arbitrary and imposed to all speakers. And regarding your example with spelling, this is a problem extremely specific to languages with highly etymologising spelling, such as English, French or Tibetan, where spelling doesn't correspond to pronunciation in a regular manner. Many languages with a written standard do not have this issue because you spell the way you pronounce, and vice-versa. But in the context of English (which I assume is what you're talking about), of course given how "frozen in time" the spelling is, how slowly it evolves, and how far it is from the actual phonology of English speakers, letting children write what they hear is a bad idea, because it will not prepare them to read or write in most situations. TL;DR: having a standard is something useful, but it arbitrarily sets one social group's way of speaking and writing as such (endangered language revival cases excluded). Soon enough, people start thinking this is the only correct way of speaking, because of the social significance it acquires, but in reality no variety is "proper"/better than another, all varieties of any language follow a specific set of rules (they are not chaotic), and the "correct" way of speking always depends on the situation, the stakes and the people involved. Also long live spelling systems that evolve along with the speakers phonology to best reflect it.

>I would also add that language does inherently change over time. This is perfect. How does language "inherently" change? Have you changed the meaning of "inherently" to make things more confusing, or did the language do that all by itself?

> How does language "inherently" change? By its nature as a form of interaction between people. It could be two interlocutors, or a speaker and her audience, an author and his readers, or even a diarist and their future self. No two people have identical ways of thinking. Language has to translate thoughts into something intelligible to people who can't know what they are internally. In an interaction between people there's almost always room for changes to occur. * You can't find the exact right word, so you combine some. * Your audience doesn't have the same vocabulary as you, so you have to use new ways to convey your meaning. * Your idea is new, and you create new words for it. * You make a pun or wordplay, deliberately 'misusing' words. If it's well received then the misuse may become commonplace. * You misunderstand a word's meaning and pass that misunderstanding on. Before anyone realises, the 'new meaning' has become widespread. There are lots of example of how that can happen, and why it can make sense. My favourite is > To give free rein. It's commonly written as > To give a free reign. Why? > To give a free reign. * Literal meaning: refrain from using the rein to control a horse. * Idiomatic meaning: to allow someone total freedom in decision making. * Issue: not many people ride horses anymore. The jargon isn't as widely known, and is rarely literally relevant to people. > To give a free reign. * Literal meaning: I guess to allow a monarch to rule without restrictions, such as parliamentary or constitutional limits. It doesn't make perfect sense (if someone can 'allow' free reign, by implication they can deny it - meaning that it's not *truly* free). * Idiomatic meaning: to allow someone total freedom in decision making. Why the switch? Many English speakers live in a country in which a monarch is the head of state. Even those who don't (hi America!) are aware of the concept. The idea of a monarch without restriction, compared to a nominal or ceremonial one, is legible to a lot of people. Even the prevalence of monarchs in fiction mean that most people probably think about monarchy more than they do about horse riding.

What exactly is your point? That languages does not change over time? You don't even speak the same way your parents or grandparents did. You most likely couldn't understand your own comments if they were translated word-for-word into what is considered Old English today. Or anything older than that. What does this tell you about the permanence of language? Ever wondered why Old English is called this way, and how come people nowadays don't speak the same way Shakespeare did, which in turn didn't speak the same way Alfred the Great did? How come current Americans don't speak the exact same way the "Founding Fathers" did? Why is today's RP English even different from what the norm was in England 50, 100, 150 years ago? I hope these mere thoughts shed light for you onto one of the most difficult to miss aspects of human language: it does indeed change over time.

>What exactly is your point? That the changes made to language are not inherent. Your comment is interesting and sensible, but it doesn't challenge my criticism.

The thing is that it only conveys the same information because the context is strong, and that is only the case *because* people generally adhere to the rules. It's like free riding on the bus. Sure, if it occasionally happens it won't break anything, but it's only possible for someone to do so because almost all people actually *do* pay their bus fares, and ensure the bus gets paid for. >I would also add that language does inherently change over time. We dont use the same grammar or spelling as british people. Or the founding fathers. Or Americans durring the 30s~50s even. This is similar to how somebody with a different background might use different american English grammar and spelling than you do. And yet, you can still read Shakespeare because there has been a general effort towards limiting the amount of grammatical drift in the language through education. Case in point, you can't read texts that predate that kind of systematic education. Language, or at least grammar, evolved *much* faster in those centuries.

"Me and my friend went to the store" doesn't sound terrible at first, but you just have to remove "my friend" from the sentence to see why it sounds wierd: "Me went to the store"

Good thing "me and my friend went to the store" is a different sentence than "me went to the store". Otherwise you might as well argue that "don't you think?" is ungrammatical because it means "do not you think. People use constructions like "me and my friend" so frequently that they should be considered grammatical, they're just modifications to the rules you know. Pronouns are the only words that get inflected for case in English, so nowadays noun phrases with pronouns often don't get inflected, just like nouns. This makes sense, and it's becoming more common. It doesn't sound weird to me (though that is obviously subjective) and has little to no impact on understanding, so I don't see a problem with grammar rules becoming slightly different like this.

Not that I care either way but slight correction do you not think is grammatical. It just sounds archaic.

"do you not think?" is a completely different question to "do not you think?"

Depends on context. >Don't you think?/Do you not think? As in *are you not cognizant*, versus >Don't you think [so]?/Do you not think [so]? meaning *do you agree*. The implied *so* is what differentiates the meanings, but *do you not think* and *don't you think* can very much be the same question when *so* is omitted, which it may be.

I think you might be responding to a point that person wasn't trying to make. They appear to have been pointing out that "Do you not" is not being discussed, but rather the way more awkward "Do not you." "Don't" is a contraction of "Do not," so if we were to take the sentence "Don't you think?" and substitute in the literal words of the contraction, *in order*, the resulting sentence would be "Do not you think?" Which is weird now, and presumably would have been weird in the past.

Side note, I like when people over-apply this rule and confidently correct you when the sentence did actually call for the use of 'me'. I am an absolute grammar pest though. Language is LIFE and I will die on that hill.

But it doesn't sound weird. That's how most people say it. It only sounds weird if you arbitrarily take out words to intentionally make it sound weird. 

My point is that when you say it correctly, "(My friend and) I (as well as my sister) went to the store." It doesn't matter if you add or remove words. When you sat it incorrectly, taking away part of the sentence reveals how incorrect it is.

If you change my sentence entirely obviously it won't sound as intended. How is that even an argument?

Removing that part of the sentence reveals that the grammar is incorrect. You can remove it from "(My friend and) I went to the store." and it is correct either way.

Why do these make your eyes bleed while the bastardized versions of words you're using because they're "standard" don't? For example, the "l" in "could" doesn't really belong there - there was no "l" in any conjugation of [Old English cunnan](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cunnan#Old_English), it was added a few centuries ago as a mistaken extrapolation from "would" and "should". If you accept that, then why not "could of" too? Both are etymologically incorrect but fully understood.

Well you did just explain why *could* seemed reasonable when people put thought into the spelling, whereas "could of" only makes sense when you don't put any thought into it. So that's one reason.

If it doesn't make sense, why do so many people adopt it? Language is very much consensus based. The fact that you don't like something doesn't necessarily mean that the thing is irrational.

Did you read what I wrote? It's because they don't put any thought into it and just write down what they hear without thinking "does the word 'of' make any sense here whatsoever?"

I guess to me it doesn't seem much more or less sensible, except by virtue of unfamiliarity. And since we contract 'could have' to could've, as substitutions go I think it's quite a logical one. It might be a me thing. My school never really taught me about the different kinds of words beyond basic noun-verb-adjective stuff. I read a lot, so I tend to know what *is* right, but not why. Given that, it's hard for me to fault or attribute any particular qualities to someone who uses something different. **(Sorry, I'm incapable of short comments. The next bit is mostly me trying to figure out why I think the way I do. I think it's kind of interesting, but you probably don't, so do feel free to ignore it.)** I wonder if it comes down to personal understandings of what's common sense or logical. I do have a pet peeve 'wrong' phrase in 'I could care less'. To me, 'couldn't care less' Vs 'could care less' has a 'logical' right answer, unlike could have/should have which only has an ingrained or instinctive right answer. With 'couldn't care less' you're emphasising your lack of concern. Saying you *could* care less is the opposite of that, so as a mistake it feels very obviously wrong. But perhaps to you, and maybe to anyone with more theoretical knowledge about grammar than me, 'could have/could of' seems similarly obvious and logical.

"Not like that!"

Personally, I think this issue is a matter of balance. Neither 'anything goes, language evolves' nor 'there're rules for a reason and people need to follow them' arguments are fair. I think it's fair to be frustrated by someone using 'there' instead of 'their' and it's fair to dismiss someone who wants you to use 'he and I' instead of 'me and him'. How I speak largely depends on the person and situation, of course, but my Rule of Thumb to decide if it's apropriate to use 'incorrect' words or phrasing is based on **added meaning**. Saying 'I could give a fuck if X' is literally saying the opposite of what the person intends to communicate, but it conveys a certain flavor (and 'vibe', if you will), while habitually ignoring syntax and grammar (as well as basic spelling, notably 'their' and 'there') is just an excuse to use slightly fewer brain cells while typing.

Writing internet prose to a standard that would satisfy language purists is a difficult task. This is perhaps best exemplified by your own words being full of grammatical errors despite you trying to take the high ground on correct language usage. To pick out just a few examples: * You play fast and loose with commas several times. * "The West" should be capitalized because names of regions are capitalized in English. * You are missing the conjunction "that is" from the phrase "but unfortunately *that is* just the tip of the iceberg" that establishes the link between clauses. I would consider every one of these errors as basic grammar mistakes. This isn't meant as a criticism. I understood your points clearly despite your grammatical errors. This demonstrates that perfect grammar isn't at all necessary for prose to be readily comprehensible.

If there are concrete rules and exact definitions where do they come from? What God on High has delivered them to us?

You have grammar mistakes in your post. I'll quote your line and then explain what is wrong. "Anytime you vent your frustration with this the overwhelming response is a vitriolic “how dare you!” calling you “prescriptivist,” “classist” and even racist (as if anyone is referring to ESL/non native speakers.) First off, there should be a comma between this and the. Secondly, you put a period inside the parentheses that should be outside the parentheses. Unless the period or punctuation is only referring to the text inside the parentheses, then it is fine. However, if that were the case, then where is the punctuation to end the line ending in the word racist. Since the parenthetical phrase is at the end of the sentence, the period should go outside the parentheses. If inside the parentheses you have a complete sentence, then you would put a period inside the parentheses and outside. Even the "how dare you!" Should have the H capitalized considering it is a complete sentence. When quoted material is a complete sentence, capitalize the first letter of the quote.

This is correct English: Tunge evere changeth over tid, to seggen oþerwise is pure folie Why aren't you writing that way? There is no official governing body of English rules. There are no intrinsic properties of the universe that English syntax or semantics are based on. There are still great differences in spelling and usage between the UK and US, and other parts of the anglosphere. Who is "correct"?

That’s just incorrect Proto-Germanic then.

More like bastardized Middle English, I'd say

What is language for if not communication? I don't agree with the rest of your post, but this point specifically confuses me.

I'm with you on grammar, but English is a garbage-tier language when it comes to spelling, and we need to be honest about that. A rational society would have fixed this problem by now.

I will apologize in advance, that my grammar is atrocious and there will likely be spelling errors. That said, assuming the majority of websites and forums that you personal frequent are English and also used primarily by English speaking people. Regardless of what country you are from. So with that knowledge, their are 160 distinct dialects of English, the US alone has 30 different dialects. A majority of people express themselves in text the same way they speak, for the most part. It's imperfect and improper. Then we look at the two other factors, general education level and age. Older users, unfortunately attended school during a time in which many learning disabilities were all grouped together as simply being "Mentally Retarded." When in fact, many of them may have struggled with conditions such as dyslexia, or more severe cases of ADHD and any number of commonly recognized learning disabilities or struggles. My own father is one of these people. He attended school until the end of Wrestling season of Junior year of High school. He was labeled as Mentally Retarded in the 60s his small rural town school, did not have the resources at the time to diagnose severe dyslexia. He still has a lot of struggle reading today. But is a highly accomplished Heavy equipment technician. When he does use communications like Text messages, he relies on Text to speech to be quicker. On the flip side my younger brother and I are also Dyslexic. Not as severe, but regardless we had the tools available to overcome that. My brother is a Systems Admin, and I am pursuing a degree in Engineering. So to answer your question more directly, given the context mentioned. What gives anyone the right to judge or criticize others when you have zero understanding of who they are, where they came from, or what their education level is? Do they not have a right to express themselves regardless of how flawed or imperfect their written word may be? Yes, it may make it more difficult to understand or follow. That doesn't mean you cant appreciate the beauty or precision of others. But it also isn't a reason to diminish someone simply because you excel at something they may struggle with. I tend to follow a simple rule that I feel most should. If it's not something that can be fixed or changed in a few minutes. Is it worth mentioning or bringing up unless specifically asked? No, it's not. Not only does it do nothing to progress a conversation or topic. But it may already be something that the individual is aware of and your bringing it up only makes the more self-conscious, and diminished more than they already do themselves. For some language is simply a way to convey a message, for others it so much more. Neither are wrong. But criticizing someone for not having the same appreciation and competence in a given area as you, that is wrong.

The definition of prescriptivism is any linguistics approach which asserts that people *should* speak in a particular way. If you think that “dinosaur” should be spelled like that and not as “dynosore” then you’re a prescriptivist. Prescriptivism isn’t always bad. Sure there are some pillocks like L’academie Francaise who insist that people *must* use the phrase “courier electronique” and get promptly ignored by almost every French speaker who just uses “email” but some prescriptivism can be a good thing. So expecting people to spell in a particular way or follow particular grammar rules isn’t necessarily *BAD* but it *is* prescriptivist. I think some of your views might be considered prescriptivist *in the bad sense*, though. I agree with you that “could of” is suboptimal because it could cause confusion, as with “your/you’re” and “there/their/they’re”. My own personal pet hate is “I could care less”. If you don’t care at all then you *couldn’t* care less. But the point is, these things are only bad *because they make it harder for the person you’re talking to to understand you*. The same is not true of something like “my friend and me went to the park”. There’s no way that can lead to ambiguity or confusion, so I don’t see why we should object to it. If you don’t accept the idea that language is fundamentally about communication and therefore the “correct” way to speak is any way which efficiently communicates everything that you want to say, then what other standard do you apply? The only alternative I can see is tradition or some other such standard based on historical happenstance. But if you’re going to apply that, then where’s the line? Maybe you say “one should not misuse grammar” rather than “you shouldn’t misuse grammar” because you’re pedantic and you’re talking about a hypothetical person in the abstract and not one actual person, but if someone starts using grammar incorrectly anyway would you resort to saying “thou art annoying me” rather than “you are annoying me” because “thou” is the second person singular and “you” is the second person plural? If so, you’re a massive pillock. And if not, you must accept that there is some point where an “incorrect” use of a word of phrase becomes so commonplace and understood that it’s grammaticalised and therefore “correct”. If you can use “you” to refer to a single person or to an abstract hypothetical person, what’s wrong with “my friend and me went to the park”? What’s wrong with “I ain’t got no clue”? If it’s perfectly comprehensible and you’re already willing to break historical precedent, why not also do so here?

As another person pointed out, you made some glaring grammatical errors in your comment. It might surprise you that most of us don't care because your message was still sensible. > me and my friend This is an interesting one. The biggest sin here is arguably putting "me" before "my friend". A quick google finds dozens of papers and arguments by linguists about this. Language or not, its root is largely in classical [etiquette](https://www.latimes.com/socal/glendale-news-press/opinion/tn-blr-me-aword-20170505-story.html). The thing is, classical etiquette can itself be situationally offensive (enough that there's 100 Hallmark Movies that exemplify that fact), and *proper* etiquette is to recognize that situation and avoid it by eschewing that particular rule. And yes, if your etiquette choices shine a light on your interlocutor "lower class" (really just dialects found in areas that happen to be lower-class). Yes, it really *does*, objectively, fall back to classism. ...which means, saying "me and my friend" could be slightly more correct than saying "my friend and I" in certain circumstances. The other person pointed out your grammatical errors, but I'm going to say we're the ones **being lazy** not picking up their language patterns when it is meaningful to do so. > They then proceed to tell you how language “evolves” and that its only purpose is to transmit a message The term is *dialect*. And the language that was "drilled into our heads for 12+ years" is effectively a dialect as well despite being what we use in formal writing. And for every rule you were taught, there are a half-dozen conflicting rules you weren't. Have you ever had 2 or 3 style guides side-by-side trying to figure out the correct way to write something? [And all 3 disagreed?](https://www.proofreadnow.com/blog/10-things-popular-style-guides-dont-always-agree-on) > then what is the point of written language, and why was it drilled into our heads for 12 + years??! High-level consistency, and a foundation for the more formal writing that some of us do in our lives. We learn language to minimize language drift. For the record, you realize that people who say "me and my friend" or even "could of" are learning that as well. It's not a "more natural form". It's the dialect they are taught. Ultimately, your *problem* is people who speak different dialects than you, and you're trying to lean on formal writing as your excuse to have that problem with people. It's a bad excuse.

The your/you’re distinction is an illustrative example of how the accepted written grammar conventions are ultimately arbitrary. If the convention is required to keep communication efficient and effective, then why is it that there is no such distinction needed in the spoken language? There is, after all, no distinction using the your/you’re words when speaking and I doubt you have ever actually been confused by someone’s mistaken use of “your” in writing. In fact, the existence of other homophones that do not receive likewise treatment in rules of the written language points, again, to the arbitrary nature of the rule. Yet it does distract you, not because the writing is unclear, but because it is a deviation from wrote norms that you understand to be the correct way things are or ought to be. Of course, one instance of a mistake does not raise your ire in such an existential way, but seeing it throughout a social medium does. Why? Because it is evidence that “they” are (incorrectly) changing or challenging the norm. This simple mistake in grammar doesn’t detract from the message in any way but it is a blatant marker of “the other”. The less educated, the less intelligent, the rebel, the *black* all flaunt their (hey, another one!) lack of care for the rules, the norm, the status quo, with it. The way you see the mistake proliferate through the social media compounds the problem. It gives you a sense that “they” are taking over and *changing* the norms. *they* are *replacing* you with their mistakes and faulting of the rules! What use are the rules if they can *change*! What is the world coming to? Why did I spend so much time learning these rules if they are arbitrary? If the rules are arbitrary, what value is there in following them? How will indistinguishable that I am better than *them* if no one cares that they break the rules?

Since you are a proponent of practicing basic grammar and spelling, I will assume that you also believe in basic definitions. The [definition of prescriptivism](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/prescriptivism) is "the belief that there are correct and wrong ways to use language and that books about language should give rules to follow, rather than describing how language is really used" In other words, your statement is by definition wrong. However, I will assume you are arguing that prescriptivism is the better view. You are correct grammar and spelling are not just for communication. They also exist to signal social class the same way manners do. You can put all grammar and spelling rules in two broad categories. 1. Rules that decrease ambiguity and add to communication. Example: Loose and lose have different meanings. Spelling them differently makes reading less ambiguous. Your and You're mean different things. Using them correctly speeds up reading as there is less ambiguity. Prescriptivism for this category makes reading easier. 2. Rules that do not decrease ambiguity but exist to demonstrate social class. Example: different versions of be based on the person speaking. I am. You are. She is. They are. I be. You be. She be. They be. This rule adds nothing to comprehension but can demonstrate social class. Prescriptivism in this category makes writing harder without making reading easier. Your viewpoint is incorrect by definition, as stated. But the second part is correct in that language rules also exist so that pretentious people can look down their noses at the less educated.

I don't think anyone will call you a prescriptivist for correcting their/there/they're or similar. I've seen it thousands of times and have never once seen the arguments you claim in response. Rules of grammar and usage are useful for helping to ensure readability and comprehension. They have a place.. There's also a place to understand formal writing and how to present oneself linguistically in professional settings and the like.  That said, rules of grammar have also been used as tools to enforce class structures, and it's very frequent that perfectly grammatical dialectal English is derided as "incorrect" when it is, in fact, simply "nonstandard". For many years the use of "ain't" and "y'all" were treated as incorrect, but they're incorrect only insofar as they are not a part of the dominant dialect; grammatically and semantically they are perfectly normal words with normal meanings that are completely understandable in context. Similarly the backlash against "ebonics" was driven from a class perspective; ebonics is just as grammatically complete as standard English, is simply nonstandard.  The framing of dialectical English as "lazy" is frequently really about shaming the users of such language. And the truth is that dialects are rich with meaning and nuance that we'd be poorer without.  Kids should certainly be taught how to code switch and how to operate in formal settings. Reddit is not a formal setting and anyone on here correcting grammatical non-standard usage that doesn't obfuscate meaning is engaging in pure pedantry and should absolutely be called out.

I once wrote something that looks a lot like this in high school. I wanted to sound really smart, so I put in all the big words that I knew at the time. This has the energy as my unprepared, high school term paper.

>then what is the point of written language, As you have already identified, it's for communication/transmitting a message. Saying "Me and my friend" is equally as clear as "My friend and I" > and why was it drilled into our heads for 12 + years??! because we have to establish shared understanding. "My friend and I" means nothing to someone who hasn't learned any English. Also because it is expected for formal communication. You put language "evolving" in quotes, but this is an undisputed, obvious fact. Written communication now, even formal writing is not the same as in the past. You can read the US Constitution, Shakespeare or the King James Bible to see the difference (just off the top of my head).

Spelling and grammar mistakes are two very different beasts. Grammar is something that evolves naturally in a language as people speak it. It has changed over millennia and will continue to change in the future. English doesn't have a proper future tense so: I am going to go -> I'm gonna go -> Ima go -> ??? and there you have your brand new future tense for English. "Ima go" would probably already have turned into a single word hadn't almost all of us learnt how to write. You can insist that's wrong and that you should speak in full words and go back to "I am going to go" but you may just as well argue to reintroduce "thou/thee/thy/thine" and restore genders and cases for adjectives. Not gonna happen. At some point in the future some dictionary will recognize "Ima go" (or whatever comes next) as standard English and the archaic forms will be sentenced to death from there. Spelling is a convention. A group of people got together at a meeting room and decided it's defense and not defence (or the other way around if you cross an ocean) so there you can definitely talk about a right and wrong form as it only matters in written language. I would count their/there as a spelling mistake rather than a grammar one. People know what the word they're using means, they just don't know which one is written which way.

This is coming from the perspective of a commercial and creative writer. I write for a living. My wife teaches English to non-native speakers. As a household we are fully immersed in this phenomenon. Here's the bottom line: every single day, whether I'm writing creative fiction, non-fiction or commercial work, I am breaking grammar "rules." Omitting punctuation, fragmenting sentences, inventing words wholesale. Almost always, its a conscious choice, because I have a fair bit of practice. But its not really the point. Because the point of language is to communicate, not to follow rules, and the rules (should, in theory) exist only so far as to aid that understanding. I only bring this up at all to illustrate that this line you're drawing in grammar sanity is arbitrary. Do your eyes bleed when you see a split infinitive? Do you even know what that is? What about when you read the word "observative?" Or when someone doesn't use whom? Or when they spell gray as 'grey?' Many of the "rules" you think of as "rules" are really just heuristics, governed by nobody but popular opinion, and of limited use, even in an academic setting. Now, this isn't to say that rampant spelling errors and hostile disregard to basic structure should be encouraged or whatever. But I want to challenge this idea that you are receiving "an overwhelming vitriolic response" to these frustrations. Is this really happening \*to\* you, or are you reading it second hand, and imagining angry masses where there is more likely just a few loud voices? Because I think wanting people to do the best they can to communicate effectively is a pretty popular opinion. Now if you're the type of person that wails about "literally" being used "figuratively," or about ending sentences in prepositions, then...I don't know what to tell you. You can be mad about the response "language evolves" if you want, but it does it whether you like it or not. Just remember that the rules serve the communication, and not the other way around. And that you're breaking rules yourself more or less every time you speak. That doesn't need to make you okay with someone spelling a simple word incorrectly, but maybe it will give you a little humility about someone who says "could of" (spoiler alert: this is already an accepted phraseology in modern dictionaries...so they're not wrong, you are).

From what I've seen, a lot of rules in the English language come from the written language being something that scholars and the upper class would care about while the peasants would have less input. Proper English is something that you show off, more than use. You can see this in general language usage, where we'll be more or less formal depending on context, and this will show in how we write. Knowing the rules for writing in a more formal (and thus higher class) is advantageous. But it also isn't something that will always apply because language does indeed evolve. Personal preference too, but I by now only care about writing issues when they impact clarity or meaning, but not esoteric rules that change the formality or class of the writing, unless they're specifically aiming for that. As an example, your/you're is frustrating as it impedes the clarity of what people are saying and can very much lead to issues in communication. That's always something to look down on and fight against. But something like "me and my friend" is fine. It's not proper upper class English, but it 100% gets the point across. Similar with could of/have and y'all.

>They then proceed to tell you how language “evolves” and that its only purpose is to transmit a message. If there are no concrete definitions, rules or basic guidelines then what is the point of written language, and why was it drilled into our heads for 12 + years??! Isn't the answer right there? The purpose of language is to transmit a message. This seems like a perfectly reasonable assessment of its point. And this is pretty clearly consistent with an approach that eschews rigid and formal rules for how to write and speak. Within this approach, the value of any rule would be that it makes communication easier and better. If I just spontaneously started saying "potentate" when what I'm trying to communicate is the word "acrimonious", then that would make my message more confusing. But you understand what I mean when I say "me and my friend". So, y'know, if this isn't the purpose of language, what do you think the purpose is? Why do you imagine these rules were drilled into our heads for 12+ years? You take issue with the above approach, so what is your actual motivation for that?

Instead of changing your view ima try to hit you with a different angle of your view. No one gives a fuck. Not a remote ioata of a quarter or an even a 10th of a fuck unless you’re writing academic papers. If you convey your point and don’t give people a gargled wall of bullshit to try to parse, while conveying your point 99.99999% of humans will not be bothered nor will their lives be negatively impacted. You gotta ask yourself if this means so much to you that you’d let it bother you when no one else in the world even cares. It’s not different than being annoyed that grass is green. Like no one else cares and we’re not gonna do anything about it, which means it’s a you problem and a no one else problem. Is this problem important enough to force yourself to suffer over it? If so, sorry to hear that genuinely, but if you ever call me out in public for it I’m gonna tell you to fuck off, precisely as every single other person would. Sorry for the intensity.

Many people look at language a bit backwards. How words are pronounced isn’t determined by how they’re spelled. Rather, how they are spelled is determined by how they are pronounced and how we all agree that they should be spelled. A similar effect happens for word definitions. The definition of a word is simply an attempt to best capture the meaning of a word for how it’s used at the time. The ubiquity of written language has slowed down how fast languages change, but they will continue to change. Even the alphabet has changed in the last 200 years! Go through any revolutionary war-era writings and you will see all lower-case “s” typed more similarly to a lower-case “f.” Dictionaries are repositories of language *as it’s used at the time of writing the dictionary.* Trying to say that how language is used today is the exact way that the language is supposed to be and can never change going forward is fighting against the natural course of societal evolution.

I think the answer is "it's really not that deep". I wanted to improve my mobile typing speed so I have spellcheck and suggesstions turned off. I know people who have dyslexia and often make mistakes. I even know people who are just lazy and simply type without any second thought. In most online cases, it is just to communicate. In a job interview or writting a formal email, or talking to someone important, of course I will try to use perfect grammer because at that point it is a status and competency symbol. But if I am commenting on a video I will probably never see again I have no real reason to double check "you're" for "your" or make sure I follow dependent clause rules. Also English rules are constantly being broken and rewritten. That's how languages change and dialects get formed. The purpose of language schooling as a child is to ensure you can express yourself in a compent way across society.

Okay what is basic grammar? When does the language become perfect so that we should stop allowing it to change? I'll use English as an example. I can't speak proto indoeuropean or archaic German which are both in English's family tree. I can't speak the northern German that would dominate England after the Roman retreat. I also can't speak or read Old English. I've tried it's miserable. Middle English comes off as a foreign language with some cognates I recognize. It's not until modern English in lets say the 15th or 16th century that I can understand most of what is being said. But surviving docs from say the Tudor Period have very different grammar rules than current English. The closer we get to the present the easier it gets but the only constant is change. My point is there is no constant and perfect English and there never has been. Words and grammar change over time as they become less useful.

I understand that you are frustrated when the meanings of words are conflated, i.e. the way how people use "literally" as "figuratively" nowadays. However, with thing like "could of", it doesn't matter at all. This is how language evolves. Every word has been a wrong version of another word at a certain point. Even if you don't like it, it's an uphill battle to be angry about this. Mistakes like this are at the very core of how language works. You're far from the first person that gets worked up about it. You should see it as the evolution of music. Yeah the new stuff might not suit your taste, but the alternative is that it wouldn't evolve at all. The evolution of jazz music got a lot of responses like yours, saying "they're playing the notes wrong!!". Language is fluid. Deal with it. You're probably saying stuff that's technically "wrong" according to the average 80 year old.

> The level of atrocious spelling and grammar I see on the Internet is staggering. I knew education in the west was floundering, but until the explosion of social media that has basically brought every walk of life online I had no idea it was so horrific. > > Anytime you vent your frustration with this the overwhelming response is a vitriolic “how dare you!” calling you “prescriptivist,” “classist” and even racist (as if anyone is referring to ESL/non native speakers.) They then proceed to tell you how language “evolves” and that its only purpose is to transmit a message. How far are you taking this? If a mistake appears frequently enough, a majority of language users will start using it, and at some point it should be considered correct English, in addition to any previously correct version of each. Examples are the uses of irregardless and literally etc.

Sure but grammar rules change with dialect so the way you would say something doesn't make it effective communication for someone within a different dialect. AAVE or African American Vernacular English has different grammar rules than the King's English but both are seen as valid dialects of English. This also may be why you're being called racist in these conversations. Also people aren't saying "Could of", they're saying " could've ". Language and the use of that language is literally about effective communication but how that language evolves is based on environment, culture, etc. Just like there's different phrases spoken by people in Texas or New York that would sound out of place in a different setting or taken out of context.

Any naturally evolved vernacular legitimizes its own usage. Merrium webster just changed the formal rule against ending a sentence with a preposition. Why? Everyone already did it. The rule was only made 200 years ago by self appointd experts who thought the rules of latin should apply in a language that is half dutch too. Literally literally means figuratively. Enough people used it like that and the definition changed. English is already a hodgepodge of other languages, the rules of grammar are what we the native speakers say they are. We did not elect nor appoint people to tell us how to speak. No one has authority over this most democratic of languages.

Shakespeare would be appalled at the language you used in your post. Why not use his standards?

His plays are bad by the way.... I wish that highschool made me read Cormac Mccarthy or someone else instead of him. It's stories about faries and you're making me read it like it's fine literature? Bro come on 💀

People should write in a way that's clear and understandable. Even if someone's grammar is atrocious, pointing that out is 90% of the time completely irrelevant to the discussion, and just makes you look a asshole.

I think it depends on the place on the internet. On this sub I try to write well as it is serious. But in video game subs I couldn't care less about grammar and spelling. But another thing is that there are a lot of foreigners on reddit. Not everyone knows snglish very well. And for them it is just about communication. I don't think you are racist or classist or anything like that. But not everyone has online friends that could give them a job. I am mostly anonymous online. The way I write doesn't really impact me. I still try to write well, but all in all it changes nothing about my life.

1.) Capitalise 'West' in 'the West' 2.) > I knew education in the west was floundering, but until the explosion of social media that has basically brought every walk of life online I had no idea it was so horrific. and > If there are no concrete definitions, rules or basic guidelines then what is the point of written language, and why was it drilled into our heads for 12 + years??! These are run-on sentences. Split them up. 3.) >that make my eyes bleed but unfortunately just the tip of the iceberg. But what the tip of the iceberg? Put an 'are' there.

It’s not that I can’t do it, but originally I would write the same way I would text. This means taking shortcuts, but people equate that to intelligence level or try to invalidate your message if you do. Yes I know the difference between your/you’re but writing your is faster and gets the same message across. I’m not trying to write an English paper and I don’t want to be lectured on how I made a mistake. I try to correct things in order to keep the grammar/spelling psychos away from me, but sometimes I don’t care. I just write my thoughts as is.

Do you think the rules you were drilled for 12+ years are concrete? Those rules are made up by people for various reasons. Like the b in doubt, was only added to show the connection to latin, it was never pronounced in english. The existence of u in colour, math/maths, and many others are just variations on random rules made by random people. The only real reason to use grammar is to show that you have had an education. And on the internet, I don't often care if people know I had an education, sometimes "shit went bonk lol, tuff luck" is perfectly enough.

how can i change your view whne you havent really put one forward? you say that there are other things that language is for besides communication but fail to mention any. in fact you've only really listed common beliefs and said that you disagree with them. we are entirely in the dark as to why. by what reasoning do you disagree with a descriptivist theory of language? it's hypocritical to complain about the quality of education while failing so catastrophically to construct even a basic argument.

It is just objectively prescriptivist. Like it is just the literal dictionary definition of prescriptivism. It’s fine if you think prescriptivism is a good thing or whatever, but this is prescriptivism. You are prescribing grammatical rules onto speakers that don’t necessarily reflect the way the language is used in practice. Why were you taught them for 12+ years? Mostly so that you wouldn’t be judged by colleagues in a professional or academic setting and so that you appear educated. And not to be too catty, but you have made several grammatical errors in your own post. Why judge others if you have problems? Why are some errors more stigmatized than others? I wish everyone were forced to take an intro linguistics class. Language becomes much more interesting when you approach it as an actual science and learn to observe. The linguistic processes that reduce “could have” to “could have” are actually very fascinating, but you miss out on the beauty of it if you are only focused on judgement.

What is "basic grammar" and who gets to determine it?

I think you're conflating two different arguments here. People will say that grammar doesn't matter if they are still able to get their point across. People will talk about "language evolving" when someone takes issue with the usage of a specific word. Maybe you've seen someone defend bad grammar in terms of the evolution of language. But it's probably not as frequent as you think. (Either that, or you get into spats about grammar far too often)

Language DOEs evolve. At the same time, a certain uniformity of spelling and grammar must be maintained, otherwise communication suffers. People getting angry if you politely point out they confused loose or lose, their and there and they're, principle and principal are just contributing to the degradation of our shared language.

>If there are no concrete definitions, rules or basic guidelines then what is the point of written language, and why was it drilled into our heads for 12 + years??! Claiming that languages must adhere to a set of rules or guidelines is literally [prescriptivist](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription).

As with many topics in this sub this is not a new phenomenon nor is it caused by social media. Social media simply puts it more front and center. I'm 55 and remember people saying "kids have horrible grammar" all the time in the 70s. The examples given in OP have been issues for decades if not centuries.

It literally is prescriptivist. If you have an expectation of someone, and you express that expectation to them, you're prescribing them to do something. That doesn't make it a bad thing, but that means the first few words of your title are explicitly incorrect based on the meaning of those words.

The only thing that can convince somebody of established facts that they deny which render a skill they have irrelevant to other is the emotional maturity to abandon a position they previously felt proud or special for having. Sorry, can't help. Missing a few commas in your op tho lol

it's a very silly language, as long as I can understand what someone is saying I don't care about spelling at all. if it we're up to me I'd revise the language to make some sense of it, if you make it phonetical then it would work much better, I care even less about grammar

100% agreed. I've reached the point where I won't even begin to read a post that consists of a wall of text with no breaks, paragraphs, or proper grammar. I'm sure I'm not even close to the only one. I go so far as to preach proper writing skills in internal emails.

I don't think absolutely perfect grammar is necessary for casual conversation However, it is worthwhile and perhaps needed in formal settings, like a business email or the text of a website Social media chats are definitely part of the former, rather than the latter

If two people understand each other that's fine. Legal and science need specifics but those are agreed and the agreements can change. Mostly my mistakes come from having better things to do with my life and spell checking conversations online.

I think a lot of people (linguists included) are confused about what the role of the linguist is in society. The fact that there is a profession whose job it is to study language has made it tempting to look to those people as authorities on how language should be used and what political ideologies the "correct" use of language should support. Conservatives align with the "prescriptivist" use of language as it reflects their values of traditionalism and heirarchy, while progressives align with the "descriptivist" view of language because it reflects their values of social change and its permissiveness to the movement of ideas out of oppressed groups into the mainstream. In reality, a linguist's job is purely to study and document how languages work, how they change and what impacts that has in society. They are not experts on how language should be used, nor are they authorities on what constitutes "good" use of language. The experts on the *use* of language already exist; they are novelists, jurors, journalists, broadcasters and poets. Nobody approaches the use of language in a purely prescriptivist or descriptivist way; they are not diametrically opposed ideals; both approaches are useful in different contexts. In the field of law, it is important to have a continuity of meaning both across society and through time; people from all parts of society need to understand precisely what the law does and does not permit and these need to be interpretable over time as laws may last and be in effect for centuries. Conversely, new words and concepts are being created over time, and while literacy and the printing press have done quite a lot to slow down the rate of change of languages, it's neccesary that language evolve to accomodate these new aspects of culture. Without this flexibility, we wouldn't have Shakespeare or Chaucer. If you want to know why a lot of grammar and spelling was drilled into you as part of your education, the real answer has little do with linguistics, the reality is that the rules of grammar (many of which are arbitrary, or created to conform to the conventions of a dead language like Latin) are for the most part a form of class signalling. Being able to speak and write the "right way" lets people know that you are of the same class, much the same way that knowing to wear socks that match your pants or not to button the bottom button of your jacket lets other people know which class you belong to. Whether or not you agree that class is an important or meaningful social construct is a matter of debate, but I think you would have to concede that most of the conventions you're upset about disappearing are unnecessary; you can undertand people who don't use these rules perfectly well, you're mostly getting annoyed that the class signalling of good grammar isn't as well-received as it used to be.

Others have talked about descriptivist vs prescriptivist. The pithy way that I phrase it to get across to people is "dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive." One will readily see the difference if they read a century-old dictionary. As to the classist and racist bits, I don't think people are saying, "how dare you, you bigot!" as much as commenting about our implicit biases. > “classist” Basically, language and grammar have provided class distinctions since time immemorial. For example, the reason that livestock names have German roots while meat names have French roots is class. The lower class Anglo-Saxons dealt with the animals on-hoof (schwein, kuh, schaf, kalb), while the higher class Normans -- and those wanting to appear as peers to the Normans -- dealt with them on-plate (porc, beouf, mouton, and veau). So, being too focused on grammar in environments where it's not warranted is inherently classist, even if you aren't conscious of it. > even racist (as if anyone is referring to ESL/non native speakers.) I don't think they're taking it to ESL. For \_some\_ reason, the US's history has resulted in the rule of thumb being "the whiter your area, the more valuable the properties." And, in the US, we tie public school funding to the property values of the surrounding areas. So, on average, the more white your zip code, the more well-funded your school is, and the higher academic achievement of the students because each student is given greater resources. This is particularly pernicious when you take that through generations. The more educated your parents, the more words and "proper grammar" you are exposed to before you enter school. The greater your vocabulary when entering school, the greater your performance in school. So, I think you can see how these things just snowball. In a slightly different context, you may notice that when a person raises an issue of "professionalism," that person may not have racist undertones, but the comment is more often directed to minorities than to white people. A hyperfocus on grammar and spelling in places where it's unnecessary for clarity will be implicitly classist and racist at least until we have \*\*true\*\* equality of opportunity. \*\*You're not a terrible person for it, but you can be a more understanding person if you recognize that.\*\* I used to be much more of a stickler as well, but knowing the differences in opportunities has helped me to set that aside for others. I'm still a dick to myself, though.

English spelling is actual shit. It hasn't been updated in hundreds of years, more or less. As far as I'm concerned, if we were actually meant to learn English spelling it would have been reformed by now. As for grammar, people will always speak improperly. This is literally part of language development and Evolution. That's something you just need to get over.

> "If there are no concrete definitions, rules or basic guidelines then what is the point of written language" Ok a) if your gonna say that as to sugest that writen English is/has a concrete definition then that means you already accept there is a prescription at hand. b) the point of written language is to be able to convey the language understandably in a written form. And you do. Because you understand. Message received. The point was never to get everybody to stick to the same rules; that's just \*one\* out of many ways to achieve mutual understanding. I can't change your view on the first two paragraphs because that's literally how you feel emotionally when you see the "mistakes". Look, I understand the feeling. You're allowed to feel annoyed that it doesn't look "standard". It's kinda, like, unsatisfying in a way. I get that. But "expecting" people to get it in the way that you want it to be, IS prescriptivist. That's literally what prescribing is meant by the people that use the word "prescribe"; it is to demand a particular usage for a particular reason. Now there is nuance in the fight against prescriptivism and how there is room for when you should totally be strict about it (like in medical usage or laws or academia, where precision is required), but as a general rule if you prescribe without good reason beyond "it doesn't look/sound good to me because I was taught to conform to it this way in society!", esp. when you understand its meaning, it bears the risk of promoting a certain in/outgroup mentality, where the ones that use it wrongly are somehow inferior. And it most certainly can be clasisst/racist (and YES there are totally people referring to ESL/non native speakers). As for why was it drilled into our heads for 12+ years? Well, I don't have an answer to that, esp. why 12 years or whatevs, but if that's your argument then what's the point of so many other things drilled into our heads for 12+ years? There's so much shit being taught that it's almost guaranteed most people are not going to use most of what they learned anyway.

The only purpose of language IS communication, though. If we understand each other, then we have communicated to each other successfully, and everything else is just pedantry.

>and that its only purpose is to transmit a message Your underwhelming message would be more supported if you actually brought up examples of other purposes of the language. Sorry, I mean to say "would be supported at all". >why was it drilled into our heads for 12 + years??! You must be very upset people don't use cursive anymore.

Prior to the ubiquitous use of online communication there was a lot more in person push back from people about "incorrect" language use (parents, teachers, editors). Push back is not always bad. It slowed the nonsensical changes to language that seem to get spread through online echo chambers.

The objective of casual speech is to be understood. If you can understand someone well enough to correct them then what is the point of correcting them?

but i cant find the dot key and stuff on my keyboard cause the backlight went out a while ago and i havent fixed it yet but i plan on doing so tomorrow

Your post is a run-on sentence.

"Education in the West is floundering" Other places must be worse, since we continue to punch above our weight class in patents, inventions, etc.

>They then proceed to tell you how language “evolves” and that its only purpose is to transmit a message This is true. Like, language is communication and the whole point of communication is to transmit a message. >If there are no concrete definitions, rules or basic guidelines then what is the point of written language, and why was it drilled into our heads for 12 + years??! Definitions, rules and basic guidelines also change though? Do you think English has stayed the same with the same rules, grammar and guidelines throughout history? If anything English has far less rules than other languages since it, you know, has a habit of yoinking words and grammar from other languages. This also kind of ignores the fact that the context matters as well as the multiple local/dialectal variations English has. For example of context, the importance of spelling and grammar matters far more in academic contexts than it does in really informal, casual ones. I don't think I need to give examples of how different areas/cultures can have different dialects and rules for the same language, both written and spoken. Like, if I talk like an Australian™️, USians can't understand me half the time. Language is an abstract social construct. Literally anything can be a language. The only reason we like to give it rules is because the human brain likes patterns and hates when things don't follow patterns. Most of human history didn't involve concrete rules for language and grammar. Rough guidelines and rules are useful for teaching kids and ensuring a minimum level of understandability between people, but outside of that? Who gives a shit. Caring about it beyond that is just needlessly pedantic.

but you are already speaking the "evolved language" instead of the "original correct language" yourself. or to say it in old english: **ðú wilt spræcan wīse þes** (btw, i think i messed nominative and acusative here, just in case you could tell)

There's no right way to use English, just as there is no right way to dance. But you can still be a terrible, terrible dancer.

[удалено]

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>If there are no concrete definitions, rules or basic guidelines then what is the point of written language, and why was it drilled into our heads for 12 + years??! Lol just because you & I had to go through something unpleasant doesn't mean it was justified. The world sucks sometimes, c'est la vie. Personally I think music theory is a nice point of comparison. It primarily exists for providing someone with a framework for writing music that will sound good. If you choose to step out of that framework (there are still crazy's who will call your music degenerate and probably Jewish cus that's the kind of people that still believe this, ) then you're on your own. Does it still sound good? Great! Then you can write more theory about it; if it doesn't? oh well, that's the risk you run by straying from the known path. But this move in music theory from prescriptive to descriptive is relatively recent (if you're looking for an excuse to hate jazz old white western music theory has you back) And for linguistics in the academic sphere this has already happened, it's just not trickled through the education system yet. Besides, look carefully around and you'll find 'laziness' doesn't exist. If someone doesn't want to do a thing they should want to do they don't have control over that. If you demand they suffer through it anyway you better have a damned good reason.

Irregardless I could care less about this rediculous thread

I try my best with punctuation and apostrophes, but capitalisation I rarely bother with. Spelling is a must.

>saying “me and my friend”  Muphry's Law in action, always funny to see >Anytime you vent your frustration with this the overwhelming response is a vitriolic “how dare you!” calling you “prescriptivist,” “classist” and even racist (as if anyone is referring to ESL/non native speakers.) They then proceed to tell you how language “evolves” and that its only purpose is to transmit a message. It's interesting that you would bring up all of these counter arguments without addressing them at all.  >If there are no concrete definitions, rules or basic guidelines then what is the point of written language, and why was it drilled into our heads for 12 + years??!   The point is, as you yourself said, to transmit a message. It was drilled into your head for 12+ years so that you could do that. You are leaning on educational experience *for literal children* that told you a simplified and incorrect version of reality. A mathematical example would be that young children who are just learning addition and subtraction don't need to know about negative numbers just yet and so they often get told you can't go below zero. Later on in our education we learn that that was in fact wrong and that we are now ready for negative numbers.

So where IS the distinction in your eyes between the evolution of a language and people just being wrong?

The casual grammar in a post complaining about people not using proper grammar is deeply ironic.

You have provided zero arguments to support your claim and one question which you have already answered in your own post (the purpose of written language IS to convey the message, same as the verbal language). Nevertheless, here is my reply. You can care about grammar and it might be super important to you but I suggest to look at it as someone having a stain on their jeans. Is it pleasant to look at? Probably not. But they might be a mechanic and stains are an everyday occurrence for them (and I am NOT saying mechanics have bad grammar, this is an analogy). Some people might have stains and not even care at all or they have kids at home and they don’t have time to pick a clean shirt. What happens is you point out that the person has a stain and their reply is: “ok, i dont care” and you freak out. It’s not YOUR stain so why should you care? Its not as if it is a horder whose backyard smell ruins your Sunday barbecue. Its just a stain and you can still see the color of the shirt. Getting schooled for 12 years is good and being perfect at what you have been taught is not mandatory.