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Does it make me a member of the grammar police if I expect my immediate family members to spell my first name correctly? Maybe that would make me a member of the spelling police? Or maybe the family police?
Unless your first name is Aghlkhfsjkbkjdsfsupojhkdsfajk;njkfhj;fh;anhkdfklhj fhds;jkg, I think spelling your name correct is just...common courtesy. My daughter has a fairly common spelling of a fairly common name. But there are 3 or 4 accepted spellings. My feathers are ruffled when a close sitter or teacher spells it wrong. It feels like...they couldn't be bothered to remember it.
I'm sorry, but the expression really is "toe the line". It means to line up with your toes on the line like you are being told. As in "toe the party line": do what the party tells you to do.
I'm a writer and love language. I understand where Jay is coming from here and am a bit surprised by the people jumping on him or her about having "issues." Jay never said he or she admonished people for their grammar on here!
Anyway... I believe strongly that people should express themselves to a certain standard and as well as they can. Of course people can be lax on grammar rules on a forum, but some effort should be made. The only considerable grammar issues I see around here are people for whom English is not their first language, which is obviously fine.
The only people I ever correct are people who ask for it (critique partners and clients), close friends or family who I am trying to save from embarrassment, and then I never do it in public, and this one super grammar police friend of mine who does it as a joke.
People who do it as a passive aggressive attack are just trying to elevate themselves.
Drives me nuts when people use "of" instead of "have." Also "wonder" when "wander" is correct. However, I do not correct other people... it's not worth the hurt feelings or sounding like a know-it-all.
Grammar police are annoying. I rarely correct anyone. Everyone makes mistakes, even college English professors. No one has the time to look at every single word and punctuation mark they have ever typed or written. Sometimes even the most brilliant people have made errors when speaking or don't know all of the rules. It's hard to know all of the rules when there are so many, I have seen English professors get in shouting matches over commas and semi-colons, I have seen professional writers argue over whether or you can start a sentence with a conjunction. If someone doesn't like the rule they simply ignore it or create their own style manual. Some English professors balk at the silly junk they see in what is considered the writers bible the Chicago Style Manual.
The CMS 16th edition is 1040 pages. Why do we need 1040 pages on grammar rules? Because we speak a stupid language with idiotic rules that have become too complex. Not to mention the language evolves too quickly. Our language has 10 different words that mean the same damn thing. Helping verbs? That's the dumbest part of our language.
Take a trip over to writing forums. When you have 220 posts of people arguing over whether its a ray gun or a raygun, you know you have issues with your language. Then, there are questions questions like: Is alright a word? Is it whiz, wiz, or wizz? Who cares it's a nonsensical word. Hell, even the people in writing forums giving advice on the original topic have posts riddled with errors.
You need a comma there, no you don't. Are you sure? Semi-colon? Well, I guess you could in this case. No you can't.
Most of my writing has gone from complex to short choppy sentences just to avoid grammar police.
The point is, no one is perfect, no one can even agree on the rules, and there are too many rules. What may be seen as colloquial or improper speech now may be perfectly normal 10 years from now. What was once forbidden is now commonplace. Read or listen to another person, form an opinion of their writing or speech, and then keep it your damn self. Attacking grammar on internet posts says, "I have no intelligent or meaningful rebuttal"
Last edited by AndyAMG; 11-29-2014 at 12:35 AM..
Reason: Grammar police in my own head.
If a charge of "passive-aggression" can be laid rightly or wrongly at the feet of grammar police, I propose that passive-aggression can equally be laid at the feet of people who are corrected politely but persist in their errors.
I subscribe to an internet forum where one poster repeatedly uses "seen" as the past tense of "to see." His (or her) grammar is otherwise perfect, and several forum members have PM'd each other as to our opinion whether this refusal to use the perfect tense (have seen) or the past tense (saw) is an attempt to offend us. We ignore him/her, but he/she refuses to go away.
I normally ignore other people's mistakes in grammar & spelling, I make grammatical & spelling mistakes, too, but I do sometimes turn into a grammar & spelling cop if the person is being disrespectful. During hostile verbal & typed conflicts, depending on my mood, it can become no holds barred just like in a street fight I see no reason not to kick balls & faces when winning is the goal.
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I would be happy ..
both ways.
