Grammar vs. Usage

Guest post by Kim­berly Wil­son.

Language is a tricky, sticky, icky thing, infamous for having too many rules that nobody follows anyway — and especially so in the English language.

Your sophomore English teacher counted points off your mid-term paper for mistakes that your boss’s boss makes every day in e-mails to the office, and the Oxford comma keeps appearing and disappearing without any apparent repercussions whatsoever!

Is it an epidemic of illiteracy? Does it matter at all?

The answer to both questions is, more or less: not really.

There are, of course, hard and fast rules that should be adhered to when writing or speaking English; adjectives must modify nouns, subjects must agree with verbs, and so on.  But there is also a line that should be drawn in the sand for so-called grammar Nazis and other annoying perfectionists.

In linguistic circles, this line is called usage.  There is grammar, and there is usage.  Common usage is frequently  at odds with mechanical conventions, often because speaking “properly” is inconvenient, awkward, or pretentious, and people want to simplify their lives and their speaking habits.

At its root, language is a tool used for communicating ideas from one person to another.  When you ask someone where your pen is, and they tell you they “don’t know where it’s at,” are you completely ignorant of what they were trying to say? No. You know exactly what they meant. It might not have been “grammatically correct,” but it got the point across, and the result was a successful communicative event.

Different situations call for different degrees of precision and formality, but for the most part, you can reserve impeccable grammar for scholarly essays, resumes, interviews, and other important junctures.  Let language serve its purpose, and you’ll be happier, healthier, and generally more well-liked.

Byline:
Kimberly Wilson is from accredited online colleges, she writes on topics including career, education, student life, college life, home improvement, time management etc.