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Opinions on “grammar nazis”?
What are Tilderinoes' opinions on people who correct other people's grammar? Should it be done publicly, as a reply, or privately, in a PM, if at all?
What are Tilderinoes' opinions on people who correct other people's grammar? Should it be done publicly, as a reply, or privately, in a PM, if at all?
They're noise, for the most part. In a case where meaning is ambiguous or somehow obscured, it's often worth asking someone to reword something themselves, but straight-up correcting them is only possible if their meaning is getting across, so it shouldn't happen.
This! It's much like someone speaking with an accent. If you can clearly understand the meaning of what they're saying, even if it might sound a little strange, it's not worth diverting the conversation to correct. It's also toeing the line of rudeness because the person pointing out the correction can very easily come off as "holier than thou" if not careful.
Out of curiosity, what would you say about someone whose meaning was clear but was absolutely stuffed full of typos to the point it was hard and took lots of extra time to read?
Nothing. My father had a major stroke and his writing is like that. He does the best he can and I would assume the same about someone that I can understand.
I'd only consider it appropriate to ask about language/grammar for purposes of understanding.
If I don't understand something due to the way it's put, I'll ask. I'd ask in public as others can benefit from explanations too, or help out if the original commenter isn't online.
A forum would be an annoying place if it were filled with people pointing out the lack of the subjunctive, the proper order of adjectives and all sorts of other formal English grammar, wherever those corrections were made.
Jumping off of this, plenty of what most would consider to be "formal English grammar" is essentially unnecessary to meaning and can sometimes even get in the way of stating something clearly or elegantly. Anyone who goes after someone for their grammar if the point is being made clearly is just creating noise for no real reason.
Sometimes it’s just fun to assume the unintentional meaning if you take someone’s mistake literally.
I’ve never felt the need to be sanctimonious and correct them in that way though. But I can’t resist a joke about how comma placement is the difference between ‘I helped my uncle, Jack, off a horse’ and ‘I helped my uncle jack off a horse.’
Yeah, that's always fun. Reminds me of that one xkcd about hyphens...
If I've fucked up while writing/typing, like improper punctuation or word usage, I actually greatly appreciate being corrected. I hate using words incorrectly because it makes me look like a dolt so I appreciate the feedback. Recently on tiles I learned Penultimate means second best, not a bigger word for ultimate. Ever since then I've been wondering how many time I've used that incorrectly
Penultimate actually means second from last or second from the end, not second best. It's something a lot of people, even those with English as a first language, get wrong,
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/penultimate
And “third from the end” is “antepenultimate”. Learned that when learning about Modern Greek grammar.
Gotta love chaining together latin bits until you've achieved the word meaning you're looking for. Sometimes it feels like half of the "big" words in the English language are just that ad absurdum.
“Preantepenultimate” and “propreantepenultimate” are also words that exist.
If you want to see what English would feel like if it were using nothing but Germanic vocabulary, you can also check out Anglish. Or just learn some German, where a plane is a “fly-thing” and gloves are “hand-shoes” :-)
Uncleftish beholding is another cool look at what English would be like with only Germanic vocabulary.
Well here marks another example. Thank you! I hope this is the last time I'm corrected on this specific word haha
As a non-native speaker I welcome all criticism, as long as it’s made in a polite and respectful manner. And, in my experience, the amount of times I received impolite corrections of that kind was literally zero. I actually never met anyone I’d classify as a “grammar nazy”. And I make lots of mistakes.
So I wonder if that’s a real issue.
EDIT: this comment is based on interactions on Reddit, Tildes, Quora, IRC, Discord, numerous bulletin boards and MMORPGs.
EDIT2: corrections are definitely NOT noise to me, and greatly helped me improve my English. I understand how that can be different for native speakers, but I’m very grateful for all the “grammar nazis” I encountered.
I personally may be the only person I know who likes them, at least when they are not an arsehole about it. Just like it's nice for me to get additional information on some issue that may make me change my mind, I like when I get to improve my communication skills. The fact that I am a linguaphile, and I sometimes have to pay people to check my grammar, can also be a part of it.
Like most things, it's about moderation and degrees. Just like the quality of a tool often increases it's ability to get jobs done, written communication is often improved by adherance to standards and common paradigms. However if I have a small task around the house, I don't need a professional grade high end set of power tools to get my small weekend projects done. Similarly, when I'm chatting with friends, emojis might suffice. When debating the merits of superheroes, maybe a bit more nuance and grammar is called for. And for the "high end", if I'm presenting a written work to an audience of millions, it should be highly polished.
I'm no Shakespeare, I've probably violated a whole list of rules just in the last paragraph. However if I got my point across to my audience, with the degree of detail and nuance that I wanted, does that really matter? In that spirit, I think it's worthwhile to correct someone if a mistake changes the meaning of a text but in general, I let it lie.
On the one hand, they're noise, as others said.
On the other hand, I'd rather read a site that uses proper spelling, grammar, and capitalization. I also enjoy language and learning its quirks, so being informed of mistakes is not something I personally take offense to.
One interesting example I sometimes see is fiancé vs fiancée. One is male, the other is female. This can actually lead to confusion when used incorrectly, so it can be helpful to point out misuse in the comments.
Other simple typos are a little more drab, and probably not worth pointing out. It might be corrective behaviour, but probably isn't a learning opportunity.
I also think the people misusing "begs the question" and "on accident" have probably won, at this point. Correcting these is likely to just lead to useless arguments.
Mostly I find them fucking irritating. This is especially because many of them get stuff wrong. See also Skitt's Law. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/skitt-s-law
I think public corrections should only be done if the meaning is not clear enough and could therefore be misinterpreted.
Simple corrections like common spelling mistakes or bad syntax should only be done privately since it doesn't really add anything to the conversation but could be appreciated by the user.
I'm continually reining in (not "reigning in"!) my tendencies towards grammar pedantry (I refuse to use "nazi" in this context), because I've learned that most people just don't care if they're writing correctly or not, and any attempt, however diplomatic, to point out an error merely raises their hackles.
The most common response is something like "but u understood what i meant so why does it matter!" - to which I want to reply, quoting famous pedant Lynne Truss:
The second most common response is something like "but its only the internet". Yes, it may be only the internet, but when you're communicating in a text-only medium, that text is the only thing you're presenting to other people - so why wouldn't you present yourself in the best way possible?
In short, writing errors online bug me, but I've learned not to say anything.
I've seen this quote before (may well have been from you), and it really confuses me in this context. For that to make any sense at all, wouldn't the thing we're talking about...have to be one of the "highest" uses of language? Having a conversation about the news or something doesn't really seem to me like it would be up there. I don't think it would be a valid argument in any case, but I'd think most would say the highest uses would be novel writing or academic writing or poetry or law or something which pushes language and does something with more weight to it.
It also makes the weird assumption that pointing and grunting is something I'm supposed to have a problem with. Simpler forms of language did get the job done for everyday tasks, is that something I'm supposed to think is ridiculous? I dunno, just seems like a miss for me. Not that you can't have your preference, but her response seems like a reply to something else entirely in the interest of sounding kinda witty.
It's been a while since an article made me this angry, though, so I appreciate that in a twisted way. I almost want to stop using the English language just so I don't have to share it with the author. Or at least be less "correct" than I already am. Standardization was a mistake.
So a linguist is a language scientist, and the first thing each one is taught is that all languages and dialects are essentially the same thing—what sociolinguists call "varieties"—and that all varieties are objectively equivalent in their potential of expressing everything that is expressable. Also, these varieties are alive, both in spoken and written form, despite the millennia-long struggle by prescriptivist approaches to curb its innovative creativity. There is a constant balance to it: ambiguity is introduced for ergonomical reasons, but it is counterbalanced with some complexity elsewhere. In the end, all linguistic systems are equally complex, but the complexity may be compartmentalised to certain areas or spread evenly.
When it comes to English, use it with pride: it is definitely the biggest language with no stupid authority to decide what constitutes it (unlike for example French or Turkish where pedants that steal a living for deciding which form is correct and inventing words make up institutions that try in vain to govern these languages). It is one of the facts I really love about English: yes, OED or Merriam-Webster may be de-facto standards, but at least there is no standard de jure, and all over the Anglophone world, local dialects appear on TV and are used by news presenters and celebrities, whereas in many parts of the world there is a lot of stigma around non-standard "dialects", as if the standard itself was not some particular dialect: the dialect the rich guys or the bourgoisie spoke back when the nation was formed.
Ironically, you can't take this quote literally. It's intended to be an over-emotional, over-the-top, extreme response to make a point. She doesn't literally mean that we should all revert to pointing and grunting. She's making the point that we have a versatile and flexible language, and it can do more than just convey the most basic information in the simplest form.
When we write, it's not just about transmitting a datum from A to B. However, if all you're aiming for is to say something in as simple and basic a method as possible, then none of us need learn any language beyond primary/elementary school. Why do we need fancy words like "conversation", for instance, when we could just use "talk"? If someone is going to reduce their communication style to the mere minimum of "but u know what i said", then most of the English language is superfluous. We could use something like George Orwell's Newspeak, where language is simplified to its utmost, and only the
most rudimentaryplussimpleconceptsthinks can beconveyedsayed. This level of language can be mastered by any child. Adult-level language is therefore unneedful.Why do you use punctuation? Or capital letters? If your goal is merely to convey information as simply as possible, then punctuating and capitalising are redundant. you can just type the words you want without the extra bits. well know what you mean so why does it matter.
Languages, written or spoken, have registers for a reason. And sticking only with higher registers only narrows the broad range one can utilise, not broadens it.
Also, w.r.t. "adult-level language", humans learn most of what they do about language in what is called the "critical period": the hypothesis that there is a critical period for (first) language acquisition, monolingual or otherwise, has a good amount of evidence backing it. It is basically a process that gets completed about when puberty hits or ends. All most adults do is learn a few more words depending on their lifestyles.
There are rather consistent mechanisms that govern how speakers select which registers to use and there are abstract maxims that are at play (well, these are more observations of phenomena than rules, but still, they mostly hold). Correcting grammar or spelling is generally a violation of these mechanisms, and that's probably why it's annoying: Mr. "but u know what i said" is totally capable of talking the language of those "would kindly ask you to refer to their previous words for they are available to them in written form and upon careful consideration the meaning would become clear to them"; all they did was to select a register according to the social norms of the discourse community and (roughly) to the Gricean maxims of speech. Which is a completely legitimate linguistic process that happens in all conversations: negotiation of register, evaluation according to natural expectations, and effects of stuff like the principle of least effort.
Oh I could tell that was the goal, but what's supposed to be a ridiculous over-exaggeration is actually plenty reasonable. What's wrong with pointing and grunting if what you want to get across is served well by it? Of course, we create new vocabulary to convey more complex and nuanced things (or just more modern things, if you want to avoid the fight over historical language complexity). But see, that's not something people are resisting when they don't care about spelling. Hell, that process goes on just fine without standardized spelling or grammar. If people want to express a new thing, they will. You cannot stop them, and they can't stop themselves. There will be new vocabulary, new conventions, new everything to get the things out that they want to. We don't need any outside help, it just happens. It's what people do.
I don't like to go here since it always sounds a bit cheesy, but it's also wrong to assume that written language on the internet is just a race to create the simplest possible language. It's optimizing for a different medium, sure, but it's astounding how much nuance and room for expression there is. What's lost is regained in other places. I've been put in a few situations where older family members discover some kind of writing from people deep in internet and meme culture and I'm asked to decode it for them, and it really becomes clear just how much you have to understand to get what's being said. How many prerequisites there are. How impossible it is to imitate from someone not immersed in it. There's so much room for nuance, personal flair, and creativity there, it's mind-boggling. It's capable of reaching just as high as any other kind of language.
Some combination of preference for the look and habit. It doesn't matter much to me, the current way I type isn't something I'm all that bound to. I know how to be more "correct" and could do that, or I could stray further from that path, I've got no issue with not doing those those things...just not my comfort zone. Anyway, I think nearly everyone would agree that if you feel that the tools for expression in proper standard English are the best for you, then you should use them. The goal isn't merely to convey information in the most efficient way (no one does that), but most of the rest of it is very personal and involves both how you want to make your language your own and what connotations you want to attach. If you do know what I mean, what are you attacking when you correct me? It might be something like my background or my mood or my sense of style, but no matter what you're attacking my expression of self. A shitty thing to do.
I think this Tom Scott video that I just happened to stumble upon is useful for illustrating a tiny bit of that room for expression that I mentioned.
I suck at typing on mobile, and make quite a bit of typos when typing on it. I also find that if I don't go back and re-read stuff that I wrote, I make so many silly errors w.r.t. syntax and orthography, especially when I'm not writing in the formal register like often on a platform like Tildes.
I'd rather not have them corrected, unless they actually cause ambiguity or misunderstandings. Because why, I could already tell they are errors, I'd've fixed them promptly if it looked like my message isn't getting through. When you click through for a notification, and all you see is "Hey, you messed up yer gramar", it's a let down, however small.
Language is built for ambiguity, it is designed by evolution to handle it. If we can communicate with vibrating meat and bones and a flapping tounge, with peers connected only with air, we can well tollerate a reasonable rate of error in written language.
I'd never think of correcting anyone, but I can't help thinking less of someone who persistently mangles their language in a public forum. It looks negligent or careless; like appearing in shorts and sandals at a function. If a 12y old can do it, it can't be that hard to get at least the basics right, no?
well, that presumes a few things: (1) that the person's first language is english, because many people on the internet's first language is definitely not; (2) that they don't have some sort of processing disorder or disability, which is entirely possible; (3) that all grammatical errors--especially the sort of shit that stereotypical grammar nazis will correct--are immediately visible and obvious (the red line only corrects spelling, and grammar's a lot more than spelling); (4) that the person isn't just on a device liable to such spelling problems which are annoying to correct and easy to make, like a mobile phone.
i think people like to assume that because spellcheck is a thing that exists now it automatically means that if there's some sort of error or people consistently make errors that must mean they don't care or something, but there are lots of alternative explanations for that kind of thing occurring and spellcheck has never and will never catch everything. (to say nothing of the fact that someone can have perfect command of english and still write fucking gibberish that is incomprehensible if it's worded a certain way.) unless it's like an error every other word or something, if you can still understand it, i honestly don't see why it's worth caring very much about. this website--and most websites--do not demand a degree of absolute formality.
Unless the meaning of what they wrote would be completely changed by their mistake, I only correct other people's grammar or typos when I want to tell them "there was nothing of value in your post". That is, I put comments that consist only of
*youron the same level asur mom fatoridiot- insulting and/or noise, because of just how low effort they are.I think that, as with most things, the answer is "it depends".
For Basic Corrections
Some corrections are generally pretty minor. By "minor" I mean that the mistakes don't significantly impact the message, usually in the form of typos or incorrect word usage. No matter what kind of correction you give, it's noise, plain and simple.
That being said, there's low-quality noise and high-quality noise. If you're just being a pedantic asshat and reply with "you're**", then it's low quality and doesn't belong on Tildes, period. On the other hand, an informative, non-condescending, well-articulated explanation of the difference between "affect" and "effect" can be arguably valuable.
For Major Corrections
On the flip side, some corrections are major. Sometimes the word being used causes the message to be the complete opposite of what is intended, or there's no punctuation and reading the comment is nothing less than a colossal headache, or the comment is just generally written so poorly that very few people can actually figure out what the message actually is. In these cases, suggested corrections are highly valuable and an absolute necessity in order to maintain quality discussions
Sometimes it's not even that the grammar is technically bad, but that the message isn't being communicated effectively and arguments over the unintended message end up being the result (this has happened many times here on Tildes). In this case, a clarifying correction--that is, not a correction in grammar but a correction in message--is an absolute necessity to get the thread back on track.
In all cases, I feel like a PM is generally the inappropriate course of action. It may or may not be a cultural thing, but PMs feel far more confrontational. Everyone expects the possibility of seeing some sort of public reply--favorable or otherwise--to their comments, but there's a long-standing trend of people abusing PMs for the more aggressive and confrontational responses that they want to keep out of public view to avoid backlash. This immediately sets a negative tone, which is what we want to avoid.