I Am One Of The "Jerks" Who Corrects Your Grammar
When you casually split an infinitive in conversation, I nod and smile, but inwardly I'm furiously scribbling my mental red pen.
No Internet meme has ever touched me more deeply than this fabulous creation.
Because some people need to recognize their there they're just shit.
Yes, that's right folks, I'm one of the "jerks" you've probably read about recently. You know, one who silently corrects your grammar.
Researchers at the University of Michigan (my alma mater, how could you betray me so?!) asked 83 participants to read Craigslist posts created by people looking for a housemate, to which they added some typos and grammatical mistakes. They divided the 83 readers into groups of "more agreeable" and "less agreeable" people based on the Big Five Personality Inventory. They found that people in the "less agreeable" group were more often disturbed by the errors than the "more agreeable" group.
The internet has exaggerated this correlation to mean that people who correct grammar are jerks. But fine, let's suppose that the study does "prove" that. I'm here to defend my position.
First of all, calling me a pedantic snob is unfair because I won't actually stop you mid-story to clarify that your sentences shouldn't end with prepositions. But I am thinking it, BECAUSE IT'S TRUE AND YOU'RE WRONG.
"But language is always changing!" everyone always argues.
Yes, language is changing and that's great. But just because we're texting each other "WTF" and "TBH" doesn't mean we can abandon the structural rules that help us communicate.
Here's the thing people: Language without rules would be "Mean Girls"-style chaos.
Eventually, groups of similar people would have such specific lexicons and speech patterns, they wouldn't be able to understand each other. Segregation and discrimination based on language would be even more prominent than it is now and the only good that would come of it is that you'd get to ignore the rules you learned in 3rd grade about correct comma usage.
Is this an exaggeration? Yes, it is. Do I understand what someone means when they use the wrong form of "your" or type "u" instead of adding two more goddamn letters?
But do I base my assumptions of your intelligence and laziness based on that incorrect usage?
I don't care if you're 6'4'', have the chiseled jaw of Hercules and are playing with your Bernese Mountain Dog in your Tinder picture (P.S.– this is my dream man), if your bio doesn't include proper capitalization and punctuation, I'm going to swipe left because I'm already assuming you're an idiot and will pass that onto our children.
This feeling isn't new. For as long as I can remember, I've refused to shop at stores or restaurants that misuse apostrophes.
Why? The honest reality is that my world is very black and white. Not just in my adherence to grammar, but also in my relationships—you love me or you don't, what's this "I'm not sure" bullshit? I wish I knew why this was, perhaps it's because it's just easier that way. The grey area is fucking scary, and I don't want to get caught living in that emotional purgatory. The one time I stayed too long in the grey, I ended up crippled by an on-again-off-again relationship that hindered my others and left me reeling for far too long.
Bibles like "The Associated Press Stylebook" and "The Elements of Style" provide me all the proof I need to demonstrate the black and white, the right and wrong, in a way that provides clarity for both parties.
So, does that make me an insufferable jerk?
I'm inclined to think no.