People assume that because I am an editor I am a Grammar Nazi. Not so! I’m probably more of a Grammar Hypocrite, or a Grammar Hippie (second definition.)
Sure, I can’t help noticing errors on menus and each time I hear a Coloradan say “more slower” I am tempted to run home–rather quickly–to Massachusetts. The grammatic gymnastics I hear daily are eye-popping. When people ask me though, I say I’m not really a big grammar person. I actually find it tedious and constrictive and I have very little enthusiasm for it. I loathed studying it in school. (Though please note my correct usage of the m dash and hyphen in this paragraph. I just read up on it.)
Like Stephen Fry, I delight in the creativity and evolution of language. This fantastically satisfying video, courtesy Michelle Bar-Evan, epitomizes my thoughts on the subject:
My time in Colorado has shown me that so called Proper English is just colloquial of a haughtier kind. People here think they are speaking “correctly,” which I find amusing, just as my Massachusetts English sounds more correct to me, but probably ear-grating to a Brit.
The other day someone said to me, “They think they know the language but they can’t hardly even speak it!” I catch myself falling into odd speech patterns myself, because when you work with people you start to mimic them. I did this with my British colleagues and now say “rather” a lot more, and I end my questions with rounded lilts. A co-worker from Kentucky made the phrase “Well, you know what you might could do,” want to fall off the tip of my tongue years later. I worry that if I go home people will be shocked and horrified that I sound like a hick, and I won’t even realize anymore.
And then I see the word of the day on Urban Dictionary and I toss my concerns in the trash. This crazy time we live in is just as explosively creative for our language as it was when Shakespeare was writing, before the status conscious writers of English grammars got a hold of it and made every effort to squeeze the life out of it. Did you realize English grammar that we know today is based on Latin grammar? Or that members of the British lower middle class wrote them to try and replicate upper class speech patterns in order to make a quick buck off would-be social climbers during the Industrial Revolution? English grammars were essentially the same as the “get rich quick” trash that is on shelves everywhere today.
Lightning strikes The Statue of Liberty. So much for freedom.
(I had to pause after that last statement. Am I still here? Yes. All right then, continue.)
I say drop the snottiness and join the fray. Contribute your own words to Urban Dictionary and delight in the vibrant world we live in. (And learn some grammar so you can write well when you want to, and so you can work on your grammar stalking skills.)
http://www.urbandictionary.com/
Let me know if you add any words. One I added a few years back was “defission,” a combination of depression and fission. I’m still trying to get around to adding “boyfriended.” That’s when a single friend suddenly disappears because of a new relationship.
Mysterious Artemis 