Note on Poor Grammar

I listened to a Ted Talk the other day that was given by a linguist and university professor of English, whose point was that the language is always changing, and that we shouldn’t be so rigid in our interpretation of others’ speech and writing.  As an example, she said that a few hundred years ago, the word “lollygag” meant to make out / kiss.

The problem I have with this is that window stickers like the one shown here is that they simply make you look like an idiot. This isn’t the morphing of language; it’s ignorance, and there’s plenty of that to go around, especially when it comes to political issues like this one.

I heard a television commentator covering a golf tournament describe an errant shot like this: “That ball could have went anywhere.” I’m hoping he got reassigned, perhaps to cage fighting.

While it’s true that the language is always in flux, poor grammar makes it hard for educated people to accept you as one of their own. When I tutor kids in English, I take my responsibilities in this regard quite seriously.