The speck in your own eye

I see a certain arrogance from time to time from people who consider themselves better than most in the use of grammar, spelling, and punctuation.  These people usually memorize rules governing the three areas and then expect all people everywhere to do the same.  At least one website is dedicated to these rules so people can memorize them.  And, those who memorize the rules condescend or browbeat others who choose not to.  It's and its are the two spellings that I encounter the most as being misspelled, but according to a list put out by Dictionary.com, the words your and you're are misspelled more often.  Ever feel judged for using it's in place of its or your in place of you're?

When I was twenty-something, I played this arrogance game with language rules when it came to holding others to the notion of standard English, but then I found that people could challenge my own notions of language that I had no answer to.  So, I quit playing language games with others.  Making people feel inferior is far from the acceptance I desire to have for others.  Far beyond the games people play with spelling and punctuation, some syntactic constructions defy memorization and require a deeper knowledge of when something appears in language, and I was unprepared for that requirement.  Who was I to hold someone accountable when I couldn't do the same in the same language game just a different area?

Why would someone say, for instance, We were given tickets for the concert, rather than (Name of party) gave me the tickets for the concert?  I didn't know at that time.  Or, why would someone who had influence on teachers of English in schools want to perpetuate the idea that action verbs, such as A key lay on the table, make a "stronger" sentence construction than a verb form of BE with a "dummy" subject, like There was a key on the table?  I didn't know at the time how to discount this self glorified "writing guru's" arrogance.  Is there a definition for "strength" in sentence construction?  Does a graduated continuum exist for a "weak to strong" verb or sentence construction?  I understand "style" and "sentence variation," but "strength?" Never. Strength is a nebulous, immeasurable term in syntax.

Then there's my favorite, the "phrasal verb."  Coined by Quaker religious essayist Logan Smith in 1925, the term didn't catch on with linguists after Chomsky in the 1950s.  Grammarians who taught ESL used a variation of the phrase beginning in the 1960s, but the base term fell into disfavor because of its ambiguity.  However, some teachers of foreign languages still like to use this old term in verb phrases such as If you will put out the money for the venture, I will run the operation.  Not many people feel the need to analyze the phrase put out because of its complexity.  They just use it, as did I when I was twenty-something and arrogant.

Working with ideas in syntax and semantics, discourse and conversation analysis, and phonology have changed every smidgen of arrogance away from memorizing a few rules.  Memorizing rules is really, really easy comparatively.  Imposing a few rules on others who can outstrip my knowledge in many other areas of life, like writing software programs, negotiating business deals, and making money in the stock market seems ludicrous.  What is the real point to an education?  To make it work for you in your endeavors in life, or show how you memorized something important to yourself and not to most other people?

English grammarians need to get over feeling smug and superior for learning well one tiny speck of knowledge in the much more encompassing field of language use.  Someone might ask them to explain the literary term synecdoche or the phonological principle of obligatory countour principle someday and their arrogance will disappear with the embarrassment they should feel for only knowing one small corner of rules in a very broad, well established academic domain.