Originally Posted by
JustinOldPhart
Nor have I.
It is a logical fallacy to leap from "advertises you're worth talking to or not" to "if you use poor grammar you're not worth talking to".
I will say that good grammar (let alone proper) is in serious demise in America. Any language is a living thing, subject to change over time. As I stated in my first post, I let poor grammar slide. I understand it is part of the continuing evolution of American English.
That doesn't mean I have to like it.
Tom
You're right about the bent logic in my post. It was bent (for lack of a better word) to gain attention and to make a point.
The purpose of language is to make ourselves understood. If we succeed in doing that, then we have used language effectively. If the grammar is off but we are understood perfectly well, the problem is more a social one.
Believe me, I spent years coaching students on the importance of speaking and writing standard English to help their academic and occupational futures. Those are important considerations. However, a contributor to this forum needs only to be clearly understood to have successfully communicated.
Bike Forum contributors are, overwhelmingly, native speakers of English. It also seems that Americans represent the majority of those who post on a regular basis. Sometimes, those who are non-native speakers, or who aren't particularly good writers of English, are given a less-than-hospitable reception. We forget that they aren't applying for a job or seeking an audience with the Queen.
Granted, this is a very blurry area. Poor sentence division, punctuation, spelling, or word choice can make for very difficult reading. However, none of those things were the case in this thread. When they ARE the case, we can still choose to recommend improvements in writing style rather than resort to ridicule (which I've seen on more than one occasion). I'm not accusing you of ridicule, just commenting on what I see from time to time on BF.
After the Second World War, America supplanted Britain as the empire upon which the sun never sets, if you take into account all of our military bases. Nevertheless, "American English" is still only a dialect of the language - no more and no less. Some feel that it is an inferior dialect, but they are (in my opinion) linguistic snobs. It's good to remember, though, that we all fall short of "standard English" (even the American version) on occasion - in most cases, every day.
Here's one of my favorite intentional abuses of grammar: "Everyone [singular] is entitled to their [plural] opinion." I make this and other technical "mistakes" all the time, with full awareness. I think the majority of us do the same. Are we wrong to try to save a word or two without sacrificing any meaning?