Got involved in a discussion today which led to this article about a repentant “Grammar Nazi” who realised that her judging of people who had bad spelling and grammar on the Internet was her reinforcing that she had all kinds of privileges that the people she was making fun of didn’t – education, income, security, stability, health including a brain that “worked” the way society expects a “normal” person’s brain to work and so on.
I’ve got to admit that I fight against this tendency myself – having an English degree, I do tend to judge people (especially online) who have poor spelling and grammar – mostly when they’re espousing a point I disagree with! 😉 At the same time, I excuse away all the typos, spelling and grammar errors on this blog because “Oh, I write my entries really fast” or “Well, Pace was bugging me while I was trying to write” or “I’m not the New York Times – it’s just a personal blog.”
So, as is quite often the case, you see a certain level of hypocrisy when this issue comes up. (Internet rule #17 – “When someone tries to correct someone else’s spelling or grammar, there is an 87% chance their reply will also contain a spelling or grammar error.”)
At least I’m a descriptivist and not a presciptivist in that I believe language is fluid and ever-evolving so the “rules” that we use for spelling and grammar need to evolve too. I also believe there are times where it will suit your purposes to break the rules for impact or style or whatever.
It’s a tough call – having some form of standards for language helps us communicate and if you’ve ever read some Middle English texts where the spelling of the same word can vary from page to page, you’ll see why this is a good thing. Or I think of something like a job application – if its riddled with spelling errors and you’re hiring the person to be a library page where attention to detail and a passing familiarity with the alphabet are a good thing – then, yes, you have to enforce standards.
(On that note, I remember a library conference session which I think was on the “future of libraries” (aren’t they all?) where the audience ended up going back and forth about the atrocious resumes they were getting from potential applicants and how we were only just a short leap from getting resumes fully written in “txtspk“. And sitting there, I kept going back and forth but ended up thinking, “Is that really a bad thing? Depending on the position, maybe you want someone familiar with the conventions of “txtspk. Or just to hire people who’s use of language is more in lines with current practice for a whole generation of people?)
So yes, you need some (loose) standards but you need to be flexible, especially depending on circumstances. On a job application, perhaps a bit stronger but on a message board (or a personal blog!), does it really matter if people make minor errors (the usual “there/their/they’re” type errors) you see all the time?
Final note: it’s quite relevant that my most upvoted submission ever to Reddit was poking fun of the grammar nazism that’s such a regular part of that site and indeed, most sites across the Internet.
And now, I await the comments pointing out all the spelling, grammar and general logic errors in this post! 😉
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