Who doesn’t enjoy a good grammar meme from time to time, especially when the grammar police are on the case?

Well, me actually. Sometimes I’m amused, but more often than not, I’m disappointed by the insistence on perfect grammar in even the most casual of communications. And I cringe when the correction isn’t correct.

I appreciate and expect near-perfect spelling, grammar, and usage in published works and professional communications. As a copyeditor, I help ensure that happens.

But, I don’t have the same expectation of other things I read, and I don’t think you should either. Emails from friends and family shouldn’t be scrutinized for errors. Facebook replies shouldn’t be snarky corrections.

Communication Is Key

The point of the written word is communication. If the author has successfully conveyed their message, faulty spelling or grammar doesn’t matter.

Spelling, grammar, and usage rules exist to enable effective communication. When a writer and their audience lack a preexisting connection, they don’t know each other’s communication style, education level, or knowledge of a particular subject.

Conforming to standardized rules that support reading comprehension bridges those gaps. Fluent readers comprehend grammar and usage rules, even if they can’t explain or apply them. That’s a basic component of literacy that we take for granted.

Language Isn’t Static

Language evolves based on common usage. At any given time, hundreds of words and rules are in transition in the English language. Bryan Garner provides the following five-stage Language-Change Index in Garner’s Modern American Usage:

1. A new form emerges as an innovation (or a dialectal form persists) among a small minority of the language community, perhaps displacing a traditional usage.
2. The form spreads to a significant fraction of the language community but remains unacceptable in standard usage.
3. Use is commonplace but still avoided in careful usage.
4. The form is almost universal but is still opposed by linguistic stalwarts.
5. Universal acceptance (not counting pseudo-snoot eccentrics).

Example: Data is the plural form of datum. However, the use of data as both singular and plural noun forms has been increasingly common over the past few decades. As such, it is now in Stage 4 of the Language-Change Index.

When a self-appointed member of the grammar police corrects a form that’s in stage three, there’s room to argue whether it’s an error. In a published work, it clearly is. In casual communications, it’s not a problem that needs fixing if the communication was effective.

Of course, there’s a limit to how far from the rules one can stray with hurting communication. If reading requires more effort than warranted by the subject matter, it simply won’t be read. If you put in the effort to write something, you want to be sure it will be understood.

So Relax

There’s a time and place for strict adherence to the rules, and there’s a time and place to relax the rules. Let’s keep copy editors for formal communications and publications
(momma needs a new pair of shoes), but let’s stop criticizing each other over semantics when the message is clear yet imperfect.

But, feel free to criticize self-appointed members of the grammar police when they flub a grammar rule. After all, turnabout is fair play.