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| My problem with the grammar police | |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| Conjugating verbs is a subject close to Samuel L Jackson’s heart. | Conjugating verbs is a subject close to Samuel L Jackson’s heart. |
| "On Twitter someone will write, ‘Your an idiot,’ and I’ll go, ‘No, you’re an idiot,’ and all my Twitterphiles will go, ‘Hey, Sam Jackson, he’s the grammar police,’" he proudly proclaimed in an interview this week. "I’ll take that", he continued, "I mean, we have newscasters who don’t even know how to conjugate verbs, something Walter Cronkite and Edward R Murrow never had problems with." | "On Twitter someone will write, ‘Your an idiot,’ and I’ll go, ‘No, you’re an idiot,’ and all my Twitterphiles will go, ‘Hey, Sam Jackson, he’s the grammar police,’" he proudly proclaimed in an interview this week. "I’ll take that", he continued, "I mean, we have newscasters who don’t even know how to conjugate verbs, something Walter Cronkite and Edward R Murrow never had problems with." |
| Jackson is not alone in his crusade to point out the errors of people’s grammatical ways. Every week, thousands of self-proclaimed grammar nazis/police/snobs take great pride in correcting the “there’s” and “theirs” of friends and followers. | Jackson is not alone in his crusade to point out the errors of people’s grammatical ways. Every week, thousands of self-proclaimed grammar nazis/police/snobs take great pride in correcting the “there’s” and “theirs” of friends and followers. |
| The more I see it happening, the less comfortable I’m becoming with the underlying mindset that seems to be driving it. At its essence it is old-fashioned classism and elitism, and it can be unapologetically so. Is it right to shut people down and exclude them from the conversation because of their lack of exposure or understanding of the rules of grammar? | The more I see it happening, the less comfortable I’m becoming with the underlying mindset that seems to be driving it. At its essence it is old-fashioned classism and elitism, and it can be unapologetically so. Is it right to shut people down and exclude them from the conversation because of their lack of exposure or understanding of the rules of grammar? |
| It hits a raw nerve for me, having grown up in a country where classism and silencing through denied education was not just a dirty bourgeois secret, but something that was enshrined in law. The South African government under apartheid made no apologies for a system that handed out better education to “whites”. Education was segregated by means of the 1953 Bantu Education Act, which created a separate system of education for African students, one which was designed to prepare them as a labouring class – a system which existed until apartheid’s dismantling in 1994. | It hits a raw nerve for me, having grown up in a country where classism and silencing through denied education was not just a dirty bourgeois secret, but something that was enshrined in law. The South African government under apartheid made no apologies for a system that handed out better education to “whites”. Education was segregated by means of the 1953 Bantu Education Act, which created a separate system of education for African students, one which was designed to prepare them as a labouring class – a system which existed until apartheid’s dismantling in 1994. |
| While the example of South Africa is explicit, there exists in every country, no matter how robust its public school system, a class that is underserved by the educational system. It is fair and well, and absolutely critical, that we keep arguing for better education, and I’m not suggesting in any way that we accept this as inevitable. What I’m arguing against is grammatical elitism which functions to socially exclude others based on class, education or luck, whether people are aware of it or not. And as long as we exclude people, things will remain as they are. | While the example of South Africa is explicit, there exists in every country, no matter how robust its public school system, a class that is underserved by the educational system. It is fair and well, and absolutely critical, that we keep arguing for better education, and I’m not suggesting in any way that we accept this as inevitable. What I’m arguing against is grammatical elitism which functions to socially exclude others based on class, education or luck, whether people are aware of it or not. And as long as we exclude people, things will remain as they are. |
| Some people would argue that some of us have had access to education, and are simply being grammatically lazy. And further, as a friend and lover of grammar pointed out, “when you muddy the waters needlessly, you poison the well of our shared linguistic patrimony.” Yes, words have meanings, shared meanings, and different words have different nuances. To run roughshod over the history of language by using a word without knowing what it means, or in willful ignorance of what it means, is worthy of critique in a university assignment when it’s a matter of sloppiness or indifference. But we can’t transpose those same expectations to public debate because in doing so, we risk excluding those who have a right (and need!) to be heard. | Some people would argue that some of us have had access to education, and are simply being grammatically lazy. And further, as a friend and lover of grammar pointed out, “when you muddy the waters needlessly, you poison the well of our shared linguistic patrimony.” Yes, words have meanings, shared meanings, and different words have different nuances. To run roughshod over the history of language by using a word without knowing what it means, or in willful ignorance of what it means, is worthy of critique in a university assignment when it’s a matter of sloppiness or indifference. But we can’t transpose those same expectations to public debate because in doing so, we risk excluding those who have a right (and need!) to be heard. |
| Call out people for factual inaccuracies, for flawed arguments and gross generalisations. Call out the substance of what people are saying, but not its form. Grammar has always been freer than its function. It is not static, despite having been girdled at first opportunity by Victorian snobbery. To understand it differently will not only lead to people feeling excluded by language, but by society too. | Call out people for factual inaccuracies, for flawed arguments and gross generalisations. Call out the substance of what people are saying, but not its form. Grammar has always been freer than its function. It is not static, despite having been girdled at first opportunity by Victorian snobbery. To understand it differently will not only lead to people feeling excluded by language, but by society too. |
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