Offen go A-rye

This all started while reading a blog thread at www.pajiba.com that had people post their pet peeves for mispronunciations or their own mistakes. We all have them. Words we read as a child, never heard anyone speak, then one day in class our own version is heard and laughed at. Or as happened to one friend, where he inadvertently said "In-eee-veet-able" instead of "Inevitable" and was mocked mercilessly.

I am a casual grammar-nazi. Only in the sense that sometimes people will mispronounce or have terribly constructed sentences, and in my mind, I'll scold them. In reality, I am terrible at grammar. I don't remember rules; I throw in commas left and right. My spelling has degraded over the years due to spell-check and online dictionaries (how many times do you just mash your search terms into Google because you know it'll figure out what you wanted...) I'm sure you'll find examples of this throughout my posts here.

As such, I generally get annoyed and angry with true grammar-nazis. People who correct you mid-sentence, or post comments lambasting the author, giving mini-educations on what's proper. I used to get really really angry. Now if they do it nicely, I'll accept it.

The old argument is "these are colloquial", its the evolution of language, accept it, and learn it. It's what I used to say, and still sometimes argue for certain points. But the reality is that grammar/spelling does serve a purpose. Words do have value, and to have them maintain value, there has to be boundaries and rules. If we allow everything to mis-mash, to become vague or have multiple meanings, we lose the the efficacy of language. This goes for speaking as well as writing.

I tend to look for a balance. Accept that the beauty and curious nature of language, written and oral, is that it evolves and changes to reflect the time and place of it's people. But realize that word choice, sentence construction, and your own speaking abilities, really do have a large effect on how the world views you as a person. Perhaps the clash of the the colloquial and the rules-lover is the way we keep language from going the way of Idiocracy, but still allow it to continually evolve.

However, don't be a dick about it.