A Grammarian Confronts an Errorist, and It's Not Pretty



The rule of thumb on the internet these days is that half the participants don't know much at all about proper language use, and the other half are cringing at the errors. It's best for your blood pressure to let those errors slide, but it's really hard not to judge someone for making the same language mistakes that have been pointed out a million times.  

Elle Cordova (previously at Neatorama) illustrates the struggle between a grammarian, who really cares about language and how it should be used, and an errorist, who superficially appears to wax eloquent but is making language errors left and right. You have to really pay attention to get all the humor out of this one, as the errorist touches on every pet peeve you can imagine. When yours shows up, you'll want to rewind and see how many others you can identify. If you can keep up will all the errors the first time through, you'll be impressed with Cordova's extensive knowledge of self-replicating language mistakes endemic to the internet. -via Everlasting Blort


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Following along the lines of Captain Womble's "prescriptive and descriptive", I was hoping for something like: "I am no longer the simple prescriptivist you once knew. Now I am a descriptivist, and wield the deeper grammar."

Then for every false grammar rule, like the prohibition on splitting an infinitive, reply with something like "the rules am meaningful" or "wood red small house" to make even the Errorist cringe in pain.
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