I don’t consider myself a grammar Nazi. When I say “grammar”, of course I’m referring to English grammar. I certainly can’t speak any other language fluently. Ok, back to what I was saying. I’m not a grammar Nazi. Not anymore. And it really chaps my ass when I see someone else bludgeoning someone else about their grammar. Especially when the writer with the imperfect English grammar isn’t a native English speaker.
I can’t say that I’ve always felt this way. There are times when I see English grammar that is so atrocious it makes my eyes water and I have nightmares for a week. And when I would see perfect English grammar I would sit and bask in it for a while. Ah. It was nice.
Until I realized that some of those with the worst grammar- English grammar – weren’t even raised speaking the language. These folks, from Asia or parts of Europe or South America – tap away into their little blogs in a language with which native speakers often struggle. They throw in strange words and mix up subject/verb things, but what they write is comprehensible. That means I can understand it, though it’s a struggle at times, and their point gets across. Holy shitballs, that’s fucking impressive. I don’t care who you are. If you can write/converse in more than one (and sometimes three +) languages then you need a pat on the back, not someone poking and prodding at your commentary.
I think that using English grammar as a measurement with which to base the intelligence of non-native English speakers is a crock of shit. The very fact that these folks are writing in a language not their own is to be commended. It shows that they are indeed smart and shouldn’t be brushed off because they use “then” when they should’ve used “than”.
When I was young and very bad, I spent some time in Florida. I lived with a young Colombian man and his family. No English was ever spoken in the house except by him, his sister and me. This guy had never taken a grammar course in his life. And couldn’t read it. He would say seemingly mundane things in a way that would crack me up. Instead of “toilet paper” he would say “paper toilet” or “paper wall” for “wallpaper”. He used Spanish grammar rules and applied them to the English language. His cousin, who was learning to read English on his own, would say “curt-ane” instead of “curtin”. When I corrected him, he declared that he was saying it like it was spelled. Ah, the hilarity.
The point is that in blogovia we’re not sitting in an American cafe conversing with others whose native language is English. We’re global, folks, and the fact is some folks just don’t know English grammar- even though they’ve taken the time to learn the language. Shit, there are plenty of native English speakers who can’t master the rules of grammar and they’ve had years of it in school. But that doesn’t make one stupid or deserving of derision just because they haven’t learned that “than” and “then” are different (though many people pronounce them the same- learning English from listening to it also has it’s drawbacks).
Also, I personally know some extremely smart folks who haven’t exactly mastered English grammar (or neat handwriting, for that matter). My math professor, for instance. The man is a genius at math (and fills out his jeans oh-so well). But his handwriting sucks ass. Very hard to read if it’s not a string of numbers. My psychology professor (Dr. KindaCute) is super intelligent when it comes to people. Has slight difficulty when spelling without spellchecker. I like to use profanity (which has been called a sign of stupidity by some) but I’m an excellent problem solver. But the grammar Nazis will tear us down. “Oh, you suck at grammar so you’re stupid…poo poo poo”. Bah!
By the way, I happened upon a Blog Catalog discussion wherein someone was bitching about someone else and someone chimed in that the someone else used atrocious English grammar and how can anyone take that someone serious. Then that someone else chimed in using a couple of different languages (and some stupid fucking ad hominems which really did fuck up his whole argument). But the grammar Nazi just kept on. Then someone mentioned that it took them 20 minutes to read the thread and she was like “Well, I participated in the thread and it didn’t take me anywhere near 20 minutes to get through it.” *sniff* Obviously, if one has neither mastered English grammar nor speed reading then one is beneath contempt.
Whoop-di-fucking-doo. Aren’t you fucking special?
By the way, I can speak enough Spanish and French to converse on a basic level. I cannot, however, write coherently in either language. That would make me kind of smart, except for the fact that I say “FUCK” a lot and my second favorite phrase is “holy shitballs”1. My first favorite phrase is, of course, “That’s the bomb-diggity, yo.” I’m pretty sure that’s not grammatically correct either. So, that makes me way stupid. Someone should think of the children and take away the keys to my blog.
English As A Second Language
I don’t consider myself a grammar Nazi. When I say “grammar”, of course I’m referring to English grammar. I certainly can’t speak any other language fluently. Ok, back to what I was saying. I’m not a grammar Nazi. Not anymore. And it really chaps my ass when I see someone else bludgeoning someone else about their grammar. Especially when the writer with the imperfect English grammar isn’t a native English speaker.
I can’t say that I’ve always felt this way. There are times when I see English grammar that is so atrocious it makes my eyes water and I have nightmares for a week. And when I would see perfect English grammar I would sit and bask in it for a while. Ah. It was nice.
Until I realized that some of those with the worst grammar- English grammar – weren’t even raised speaking the language. These folks, from Asia or parts of Europe or South America – tap away into their little blogs in a language with which native speakers often struggle. They throw in strange words and mix up subject/verb things, but what they write is comprehensible. That means I can understand it, though it’s a struggle at times, and their point gets across. Holy shitballs, that’s fucking impressive. I don’t care who you are. If you can write/converse in more than one (and sometimes three +) languages then you need a pat on the back, not someone poking and prodding at your commentary.
I think that using English grammar as a measurement with which to base the intelligence of non-native English speakers is a crock of shit. The very fact that these folks are writing in a language not their own is to be commended. It shows that they are indeed smart and shouldn’t be brushed off because they use “then” when they should’ve used “than”.
When I was young and very bad, I spent some time in Florida. I lived with a young Colombian man and his family. No English was ever spoken in the house except by him, his sister and me. This guy had never taken a grammar course in his life. And couldn’t read it. He would say seemingly mundane things in a way that would crack me up. Instead of “toilet paper” he would say “paper toilet” or “paper wall” for “wallpaper”. He used Spanish grammar rules and applied them to the English language. His cousin, who was learning to read English on his own, would say “curt-ane” instead of “curtin”. When I corrected him, he declared that he was saying it like it was spelled. Ah, the hilarity.
The point is that in blogovia we’re not sitting in an American cafe conversing with others whose native language is English. We’re global, folks, and the fact is some folks just don’t know English grammar- even though they’ve taken the time to learn the language. Shit, there are plenty of native English speakers who can’t master the rules of grammar and they’ve had years of it in school. But that doesn’t make one stupid or deserving of derision just because they haven’t learned that “than” and “then” are different (though many people pronounce them the same- learning English from listening to it also has it’s drawbacks).
Also, I personally know some extremely smart folks who haven’t exactly mastered English grammar (or neat handwriting, for that matter). My math professor, for instance. The man is a genius at math (and fills out his jeans oh-so well). But his handwriting sucks ass. Very hard to read if it’s not a string of numbers. My psychology professor (Dr. KindaCute) is super intelligent when it comes to people. Has slight difficulty when spelling without spellchecker. I like to use profanity (which has been called a sign of stupidity by some) but I’m an excellent problem solver. But the grammar Nazis will tear us down. “Oh, you suck at grammar so you’re stupid…poo poo poo”. Bah!
By the way, I happened upon a Blog Catalog discussion wherein someone was bitching about someone else and someone chimed in that the someone else used atrocious English grammar and how can anyone take that someone serious. Then that someone else chimed in using a couple of different languages (and some stupid fucking ad hominems which really did fuck up his whole argument). But the grammar Nazi just kept on. Then someone mentioned that it took them 20 minutes to read the thread and she was like “Well, I participated in the thread and it didn’t take me anywhere near 20 minutes to get through it.” *sniff* Obviously, if one has neither mastered English grammar nor speed reading then one is beneath contempt.
Whoop-di-fucking-doo. Aren’t you fucking special?
By the way, I can speak enough Spanish and French to converse on a basic level. I cannot, however, write coherently in either language. That would make me kind of smart, except for the fact that I say “FUCK” a lot and my second favorite phrase is “holy shitballs”1. My first favorite phrase is, of course, “That’s the bomb-diggity, yo.” I’m pretty sure that’s not grammatically correct either. So, that makes me way stupid. Someone should think of the children and take away the keys to my blog.
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