Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Ramble on Grammatical Correctness

I realize that by posting this, the world might come to an end, so I apologize in advance if it does.

I just watched this video, and now I'm rethinking my pickiness when it comes to grammatical correctness. Yes, it makes me cringe when people mix up "you're" and "your." I don't see myself losing that anytime soon. But maybe I like grammar so much because I like rules. Grammar organizes the complex, and it creates consistency in language. So does my grammar-stickler-ness just show how I'm an uptight sheep that follows the rules because they tell me to? Maybe. But this guy says that we should take more time to really appreciate the beauty of language, and to stop bitching about apostrophes in the wrong places. Plus, when someone says "your" when they mean "you're," or "whose" for "who's," or even apostraphes for plurals, I know what they mean. I can't pretend I don't. So maybe I don't have a right to be so snobby about my being well-educated and concrete and pretentious and whatever else causes me to bitch about who vs. whom. I'm not advocating for the decline of usage and grammar, probably for the same reasons I'm not an anarchist despite the fact that certain laws suck. And it's also not like I'm going to start deliberately messing up stuff that makes me cringe in my own speaking and writing either. But maybe this guy has a point - maybe it's not worth being so uptight about.

(Note that I just ended that sentence with a preposition.)

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Before I got to the note, I thought in my head: did she just end that with a preposition?? HA. At least, you're making an impact :)

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