We all know someone who loves their grammar. Maybe you are someone who loves their grammar. It’s not uncommon — humans, after all, spend the vast majority of our time communicating in some form or another with others, and grammar is a part of literally every verbal or written interaction we have. When someone says something wrong, you can tell immediately, and sometimes it takes all of your willpower not to stop them and correct them.
It might not seem like the worst thing in the world, but I implore you — don’t succumb to that urge, because their errors really and truly do not matter.
Really.
Sure, there are some circumstances that require a certain level of professionalism, like in academics, businesses, or publications. If you’re in one of those settings, it’s in your best interest to keep your grammar habits as pristine as possible because lacking professionalism can have an impact on your standing in those environments (professionalism has other, deeper implications that you can read about a little bit here). When you’re having a conversation with someone, however, it’s not really important to stop them and correct the way they said something.
At its most innocuous, it makes you look like a bit of a jerk — which, honestly, you are kind of being. In a more serious conversation or a debate, it places the focus not on their actual argument but instead on a superficial detail that has no bearing on their point whatsoever. Sure, it shows that you’re better at grammar than them, but so what? Oftentimes we link grammar to our levels of education and socioeconomic status, so by correcting someone’s grammar what you’re really trying to say is that your access to resources and internal knowledge gives you a right to interrupt them, which is an inherently elitist argument.
Let’s be honest with ourselves: most of us don’t actually have a concrete grasp of what the actual rules of grammar are. Grammar, especially in English, is complex and, quite frankly, boring. But I know my grammar, you say. You can’t explain all of the rules, maybe, but something in your brain tells you when you read a sentence that has something a little off about it. What about that? Is it because you’re just naturally smarter than other people with bad grammar? No. The way we learn and intuitively understand grammar is from repeated and continuous exposure to language, a process that takes place throughout our lives.
Think about it: how did you learn how to form a sentence as a kid? It’s probably not because your parents sat you down and gave you an in-depth lesson about syntax and parts of speech. It’s because the human brain is hardwired to recognize patterns, and you unconsciously picked up all the nuances of English from all of the people speaking around you, adults and children alike. This process never stops, and once you’re older, more explicit lessons in grammar supplement the subconscious rules your brain has already collected for you (called native speaker intuition or linguistic intuition). Everybody’s internal sense of grammar is a little bit different because nobody collects all of the same language data.
What this means, however, is that grammar is an imperfect art – there was no singular set of rules that were established at the conception of English as a language. The elements of grammar that are currently considered to be correct by common standards are really just rules and guidelines that we’ve all managed to agree on after thousands of years of linguistic evolution.
It’s easy to think that the way we determine grammar is a prescriptive process, meaning that we always have to adhere to a specific set of black-and-white rules that we decide beforehand, and each sentence or phrase that someone speaks is either correct or incorrect. Though there are some who adopt a prescriptive approach to grammar, many instead use a descriptive approach, meaning that the rules of grammar are based on the way people already talk.
But wait, you say. How can you make rules about grammar based on the way people talk if not everyone talks the same? Oftentimes the different expressions of grammar we see are not individually unique but are shared across huge swaths of people united by cultural, sociological, or other circumstances.
These “mistakes” or expressions, then, though they deviate from what might widely be considered to be “correct” English, are predictable, which shows that they are governed by their own modified sets of grammar rules – a language that runs alongside but not quite the same as English. These modified sub-languages are called dialects and can be as simple as regional differences in word choice (pop vs soda, for example) or a more complex, culture-specific phenomenon, such as African American Vernacular English (AAVE).
Every language across the globe has countless dialects among its speakers, some of which are well-documented and analyzed and some of which fly under the academic radar. Language’s absolute core function is communication, and if you can understand the meaning behind the words someone says to you, then whatever method they used to communicate that information is ultimately arbitrary. Language itself is arbitrary by its very nature, which makes it very difficult to make a compelling case for one specific dialect to be better or “more correct” than any other. Trying to apply that to any specific instance of grammar expression, then, becomes even more difficult to justify. If there is no one correct way to speak English, does it really matter if someone makes an error in conversation?
With all that being said, there are situations where it’s appropriate to correct someone’s grammar – but, I must warn you, they are very rarely in the middle of a conversation. If you know someone is expected to adhere to a certain level of professionalism, and you notice that they are making mistakes or typos that may jeopardize their standing with their boss or teacher, perhaps, you might want to let them know that you noticed something and how they can fix it. If someone you are close to is actively seeking to speak or write in a way that is more conventional, offering advice or knowledge is probably more than welcome to them.
If you’re not sure that your advice will be appreciated, however, take a moment to consider if it’s really necessary that you tell someone they made a grammar error or if you are simply correcting them for the sake of correcting them. Sometimes, it is just better – and more considerate – to let it slide and focus on what’s really important: their actual point.