As in, doesn’t matter at all to you.
Using “they” as singular. Also, referring to animals besides humans as “he,” “she,” or “they” instead of “it.”
I usually am a grammar nazi, but these are things I do very intentionally.
By some standards, the Oxford comma is still incorrect grammar. I’ll die on the hill that it has utility, and I’m glad it’s becoming more of a commonly accepted convention.
Alright, which standards? Show your work or else I’m a call you a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Can check style guides for publications and academic institutions in the UK, Australia, and the like. BBC, ABC, etc. Back in the day it was simply considered wrong, now most non-US publications and academic institutions simply advise not using it unless it helps avoid ambiguity. E.g. the excerpt below from the ABC style guide:
Oxford comma, serial comma
A comma placed before the last item in a list: she ate grapes, toast, and cheese. Avoid unless it aids the reader or prevents ambiguity.
American style guides are generally more in favor of the Oxford comma. APA mandates it, MLA says do whatever makes sense, and Chicago says pick one and stick to it.
Putting contracted words in the wrong places. Like ending a sentence with “you’re”.
Using “less” instead of “fewer”.
Not getting spellings 100% accurate all the time.
Using the wrong version of ‘your’ or ‘their’.
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*defense
End a sentence with a preposition if you want to. And start one with a conjunction.
That’s not just you, that’s people who know the rules of the English language and don’t care about Latin or what dead idiots thought.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/prepositions-ending-a-sentence-with
Gotta love Merriam Webster. They are fantastic.
I like ending my sentences with and.
Putting question marks or exclamation points after “quotation marks”! I’ve never understood the point of putting the punctuation inside the quotation unless it’s part of the quotation itself.
Quote is full sentence: inside. Quote is part of sentence or word: outside.
Eg:
“Oh no!” he gasped.
And
Apparently she’s “done with me”!
Love, an editor.
This is how you’re supposed to do it in Dutch.
The teacher said “silence!”.
Vs
The teacher said “silence”!
Mean something completely different. Although a few large literature publishers do punctuation before bracket because of translation ease, and novels almost never contain partial quotes anyway AND they include the optional comma at all times, which causes
“Silence!,” said the teacher.
Shudder
Especially also when you’re using them to be facetious.
He’s “talented”.
He’s “talented.”
For me it depends on if you are quoting someone (punctuation inside quote) or just using a phrase like “woke” (punctuation outside).
I really like to write ‘gonna.’
I’m never gonna give it up.
I spells it like I says it
If I am clearly referring to myself (as in a text), I shouldn’t have to inlude myself in the sentence. Ex: “just grabbing food” vs “I’m just grabbing food”.
And we can drop “the” sometimes, “close gate”.
I see you also play 80s text adventure games…
Close gate? No it’s all the way over there.
“shut gate?”
“no, it’s open”
“latch gate!!”
“no this one has a knob, see?”
“listen here u lil shit–”“Where wolf? There wolf! [points] There castle!”
A lot of languages are pro-drop and do this when the context is clear (and sometimes when it isn’t). I remember learning Japanese and people saying “we would never do that in English!”. My counterexample was always that, if someone came to my house and asked where the beer is, I’d say “fridge.” because that’s all the information the hearer needs.
In Spanish, the conjugation of the verb lets you drop the subject, which is eloquent.
“¿Qué haces?”
“Estoy
llegandollevando comida.”I’m not sure “I’m arriving food” is the best spanish out there
Whoops, that should be llevando, not llegando.
Ending a sentence with a preposition has been standard in English for longer than the language has existed, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Nothing about which to be ashamed. 🤓
There’s a funny bit in “the last man on earth” where Kristen Schaal’s character always corrects people when they end their sentences with a preposition. It shows how much more ridiculous her correction sounds.
… Not a great show, but that bit was pretty funny.
This is a thing up with which I will not put.
I see what you did there.
The right to gleefully split infinitives.
Adverbs as a rule can go anywhere in a sentence, so split away, I say!
It is perfectly cromulent to use “less” in place of “fewer”.
Some would say it’s fewer correct, however.
lol
The fact I understand all the vocabulary you used embiggens me.
I feel like a lot of the grammar sticklers out there only speak one language, and their lack of sympathy towards people speaking English as a second or third language is low.
If you can convey your point– good enough for me!
Nothing, and the whole “grammar nazis” thing is rotten. There is never a reason to have any other reaction to being corrected about objective things than learning from the mistake. If someone shows you the spelling or grammar mistakes you made, read it and memorise the corrections. You’re not losing anything by getting better at communication, you only gain. It doesn’t take you five minutes longer to spell the words correctly and you don’t make yourself look like an idiot, child with learning disabilities or someone who seriously doesn’t care about the most basic and expected shit we do for others. Language is an astounding tool and people who spot on it by not caring about spelling and grammar should be forced to take classes and taught to see how important it is.
But, at the same time, this isn’t a master’s thesis.
Sometimes autocorrect picks the wrong there, and I don’t notice. And when someone swoops in and says “it’s they’re” with nothing else to contribute to the actual conversation that’s happening, they can fuck write off.
You must have hated Mark Twain.
No one points a gun at Data and stays on my good side.
being corrected about objective things
Language is anything but objective and is constantly evolving based on how people use it.
The issue is when it is done publicly, it is almost always done in bad faith to try and shame/put someone down and dismiss everything they said due to a mistake. If you want to teach someone you should send them a private message. Don’t put them on blast in front of everyone. It shows a lack of empathy and depicts you as someone who wants to appear superior/better than them. Of course, there are ways to do it publicly but courteously, for example something like “just fyi, it’s they’re not their :) but anyway, I do agree with what you’re saying [or] it was interesting to read your take on this”
Listen bruv, if you can understand what I’m saying enough to be able to correct it with 100% confidence than anything that was omitted was superfluous anyway.
Some of us do have “disabilities” though. My thumbs are big and hit wrong buttons on the phone. Dyslexia fucking sucks. I literally can write a whole word with its letters out of sequence, just did that a few hours ago. ADHD makes proofreading fucking tedious as hell. Often i try my best but sometimes i just cant be bothered.
Over all I agree with you though. It never hurts to have someone tell you that you fucked up. It does give you a chance to learn from your mistakes.
I think outside of highly formalized writing (usually found exclusively in academia) grammar only matters to the extent that it doesn’t interfere with the voice of the author.
It matters because it makes things easier to read. A wall of text with no punctuation or capitalization is difficult to parse, both for the reader and for the writer if they need to go back and make changes.
On the other hand, punctuation can be used incorrectly to convey things that might be part of how the author speaks. Examples being: using ellipsis to indicate trailing off at the end of a sentence, perhaps because you’re still trying to find words to finish the thought, or using parentheses to indicate a slight tangent or clarifying statement, or failing to use a period at the end of a text message to indicate a softer tone and an openness to a response.
Capitalization and misspellings can be used similarly. Such as intentionally misspelling a word to indicate that it should be pronounced differently than usual, or capitalizing all or part of a word to add emphasis.
TLDR: Proper grammar matters for clearly conveying information, but intentionally breaking grammatical rules is a good way to add your voice, personality, and tone into your writing. And that is more important than being technically correct.
