Grammar Nerd Wednesday: Why is Poor Grammar a Subject of Ridicule?

This is part of an ongoing series of posts designed to make everyone think I'm a colossal prick because of my grammatical specificity. These posts are either me lecturing the masses about how to properly use grammar/punctuation/the rules of the English language, or me figuring out for myself, textually, the aforementioned.  They will run every Wednesday.  If you run afoul of these rules, rest assured, even though I judge you for your poor grammar, I'm still a lesser being than you.

            When you think about it, poor grammar is a failure of sorts.  When someone is bad at mathematics, no one stands around laughing at them for not being able to understand factorials, or thinking “Jesus, that guy is dumb!” But, when my Boss’s boss sends around emails with no concept of the correct usage of your/you’re or there/their/they’re, I judge.  It’s not fair, but I judge.  Hell, these posts are all about judging those who exercise poor grammatical usage.  Why is it so much more open to ridicule/a bellwether of intelligence in a person?

My belief is that this comes down to two reasons, the first of which is that everyone needs to write.  In today’s society, emails, text messages, blog posts, and the like have replaced phone calls and face-to-face meetings.  Our society needs to document and interact via the written word.  For me, who particularly likes writing, this is excellent!  For others, who would rather meet in person, and have conversations in the here and now (also me, by the way,) this is less exciting.  Those who were never grammatically strong are now forced to place on display their failure to understand the more arcane rules of the English language, especially with regard to diction and punctuation.

When it comes to diction, we were long ago weaned from utilizing words like “bad” and “sad” when words with more syllables and nuanced definitions came into our vocabularies.  Saying “That movie is bad” is a fairly bland statement.  Saying “That movie is disappointing” denotes a stronger connection to previously held hopes that cast a long shadow over the actuality of the performance.  Additionally, saying words with more syllables conveys intelligence to the speaker’s audience.  Just saying “I’m sad” is vanilla and immature; saying “I’m crestfallen” conveys a level of intelligence to know the word and the proper usage.

It is this pressure that causes people to make mistakes, like misusing “dearth.”  Regularly, my boss’s boss uses the word “dearth” to mean “a surfeit” or “abundance.”  It actually means the opposite.  Another malapropism that regularly passes under my upturned nose is “Trial by error.”  The actual phrase is “trial and error” or “trial by fire.”  Realistically, the phrase “trial by error” doesn’t actually mean anything awfully different from either of the two previous statements – it’s sort of the overlap between their definition’s Venn diagrams; it’s just not an actual phrase.

Seeing superiors haphazardly use and misuse apostrophes, commas, and semi-colons is particularly troubling because, as a society, we connect intelligence with success and salary.  That those above me on the ladder have what is perceived to be an inferior understanding of the rules of grammar is disquieting in the larger societal sense.  However, just because one aspect of their intellect, which is displayed far more frequently than their talents in their roles, doesn’t measure favorably to an underling’s equivalent intellectual aspect doesn’t mean they aren’t worth more to the company than is the underling, or that their requisite experiences, grammatical proficiency aside, don’t add up to a sum greater than my own.  In fact, that is almost explicitly the reason.

The second reason is the inherent lack of ownership of the written word.  Written words are devoid of inflection, even with the utilization of word processing operations that add emphasis. It isn’t that written words become separated from their creator.  The opposite is true: written words are so intrinsically tied to their creator that they stand as a synecdochic form of their creator.  They exist long after written, when context and meaning are stripped away, and perhaps, their creator is no longer able to explain their meaning.  This is why Prince only gives interviews, according to Chuck Klosterman, with reporters who cannot record, either via pen and paper or electronically, his words.  Instead, they have to recall, from memory, his quotes; journalistic integrity prevents them from directly quoting him, even if they have his nugget of wisdom seared into the base of their medulla oblongata.  His words, except for the ones he records to music, will never escape his grasp.

When those words, and the grammatical mistakes contained therein continue on, they carry with them both meaning, and the opportunity for mockery.  They are the living proof of a lack of intellect on the part of the creator, and cannot be altered after the fact.  A verbal slip of the tongue can be laughed at, explained, and forgotten.  Written down, it’s as though you purchased a tattoo that says “I don’t understand the grammatical rules for apostrophes.”

All of this contributes to a basic feeling of superiority.  There is documentable evidence of the person’s lack of intelligence in something that is the basis for our accepted and preferred form of interaction – the written word.  It’s as though we all should know and understand these things – we are all college educated, and all have a base of prose composition training.  However, one would not laugh at someone who is a slow reader.  People who read slowly (I am one) have a similar foible as those who do not have a proper grasp of grammatical rules.  Those who are not great at common mathematical terminology are similarly flawed.

Math is the true building block of our planet, universally equivalent the world over, interchangeable between societies (think Contact and the way they try to create language similarities – it is not through words, but through math.)  The problem is, none of these are expressive in a manner that is so central to our every day life.  Someone who stumbles to conduct quick and basic mathematical equations isn’t subjected to the treatment that someone who fires off an email heavy with grammatical errors.  It is unfair.

I didn’t say I was going to stop judging them, though.