R Grammar Gaffes Ruining The Language? Maybe Not | Linton Weeks, NPR

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I must think about this some more!

Weeks writes:

Reading and listening to contemporary English, you just might think that the language is going to hell, and there is plenty of evidence to help make your argument.

But, he continues, an English professor at the University of North Carolina ...

and some others who study the contemporary tongue do not think that bad grammar is necessarily destroying the English language. Instead, some posit, it may be making the way we talk and write more vibrant and relevant.

Says that English professor, Weeks writes:

If clarity of communication is the aim, most prescriptive rules of usage do not really cause misunderstanding. "Between you and I" gets the point across as well as "between you and me."

Weeks then refers to several other linguists, and they make some reasonable points about the development of language. Their ideas are worth considering.

But he also refers to a CEO, Kyle Wiens, who recently wrote a column about the importance of his employees using proper grammar. I've posted a blog about that column. He wrote:

Good grammar is credibility, especially on the Internet. In blog posts, on Facebook statuses, in e-mails, and on company websites, your words are all you have. They are a projection of you in your physical absence. And, for better or worse, people judge you if you can't tell the difference between their, there, and they're.

Weeks concludes:

In other words, Wiens is saying to those who argue that bad grammar is not all bad, there may be a real-world reality in their argument they're not reckoning with.

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This article is featured in today's (Aug. 8) Garbl's Style: Write Choices -- available at the Editorial Style tab above and by free email subscription.