BFTP: Grammar snobbery
Wednesday, December 4, 2019 at 09:31AM 
The Apostrophe Protection Society has been disbanded after announcing 'ignorance and laziness' have won. CNN, 12/3/19
I'll be the first to admit it. I am a grammar snob - and I am getting worse.
A sentence that ends in a preposition (Children are fun to spend time with.); a mismatched subject and pronoun (A teacher should always watch their language.); non-standard word use (Irregardless, the show must continue.) and little things like using a qualifier with an absolute (The song was somewhat unique.) are all fingernails on the chalkboard* to me.
I am forgiving of spelling errors but not of homophonic errors (They're trip to the ocean was uneventful.) There are plenty of word usages that still confound me (lie and lay, ensure and insure, adapt and adopt). I'm positive that I make errors that must drive other grammarphiles nuts. And even I will admit that many rules of language use are arbitrary, useless, and dated, adding little if nothing to the clarity of expression.
Grammar bigotry is probably a symptom of some deeper, more psychotic condition that compels a person to divide the world into acceptable and unacceptable levels of competence and therefore acceptable and unacceptable sorts of human beings.
I promise to do better to recognize my own biases in this area.
If you promise to use fewer language errors.
*Another cliche that's rapidly becoming meaningless.
Reader Comments (2)
Since retiring myself in 2010 (not a typo), I rarely visit LinkedIn or former fave education blogs, but did today because of a search notification and happened upon you and your Blue Skunk musings! I cannot recall how far back I “discovered” you—now, don’t get cocky as I discovered quite a few remarkable educators back around of the millennium when Yahoo was exploding—but it was then, or before in some education-related periodicals. And Blue Skunk was there. I enjoyed reading about your recent “excellent adventure”. Always a fan...m
Missi,
Your comment made my day! Thank you!
I learned a lot from my fellow bloggers as well. And I am now happily retired for 10 months.
All the very best,
Doug