This is true! Something that I, as an academic linguist, wish everyone knew: linguists use ‘grammar’ in a different meaning than what they told you ‘grammar’ meant in school. Here is why this should matter to you, a thoughtful person who believes in Truth and Science: 1/
What students are taught in school is a particular form of a language. Most of the time, that’s the variety that has the most social prestige. It most closely resembles the way that the more wealthy, educated, socially dominant class uses language (or wants to think they do). 2/
But this system of classroom-taught rules with clear rights and wrongs isn’t ‘grammar’ to linguists. It isn’t (mainly) what interests us. Linguists are scientists studying the human phenomenon of language. ‘Grammar’ is better described as a set of subconscious, internal rules. 3/
Your grammar is how you know that ‘Norman washed the dirty dishes’ is an understandable sentence in English, but ‘Dirty the washed dishes Norman’ is not. If you grew up speaking English, no teacher or parent taught you this. You figured it out yourself! Human 🧠s are awesome. 4/
And since no two people’s experience with language(s) is exactly the same, grammar varies from community to community, household to household, even speaker to speaker. What we think of as a ‘language’ is a social consensus, the overlapping part of umpteen unique Venn diagrams. 5/
We’re all aware that other people who grew up speaking the same language as us will pronounce some things differently. Will use different words for some things than we do, use the same words for some different things. Even use some different word orders, or other differences. 6/
All those points of difference come about naturally over time. Yes, we have individual agency over many aspects of how we use language, but remember that the ‘language’ at any given time is a consensus, like the world’s biggest Wiki, and is always shifting and adapting. 7/
What societies tend to teach kids in school is that there’s a single objectively correct ‘grammar’, and they must learn it to be Smart and to be Successful in life. But the variety of a language that has the prestige, the one that gets taught in school, also changes. 8/
Things that sound ‘proper’ now didn’t always sound that way. And sounding proper doesn’t tell you something linguistically meaningful. Rather it tells you about the society. People who had more power in society talked like A, people who had less power talked like B, C, or D. 9/
Here is where school ‘grammar’ can get sinister: when we buy into the belief that it is inherently better, whether for natural reasons, social reasons, economic reasons, or any reason. Not so. ‘Grammar’ as you probably think of it is indeed a social construct. 10/
I said above that the ‘grammar’ that linguists study is a set of subconscious, internal rules that each human figured out for themself. When you hear a speaker, no matter their education level, age, race, or where they grew up, they’re using their set of internal rules. 11/
So when you comment on, correct, or mock the way someone uses language, you’re flexing power over them. When you do this, especially to fellow native speakers, you’re showing your internalized prejudice. And just because it’s socially acceptable doesn’t make it ok. 12/
This is also true of how people mock Trump, and mocked Bush, sure. But the vast majority of the time it happens is punching down, signalling to someone that a natural part of how they developed as a human is lesser. School ‘grammar’ is a big part of this problem. 13/
When you start to think about language like language scientists (linguists!) do, it’s plain as day that ‘grammar’ as generally understood can be a powerful tool of control and oppression. Don’t talk the right way? Good luck in that fancy job interview! 14/
We need to check our expectations about ‘grammar’. If you’re someone who speaks English and hires employees, stop and ask yourself: is it important to me how someone talks? Why do I care if they sound like a white person? Or sound like how a white people taught me to sound? 15/
This doesn’t come naturally to all linguists, either. We were also socialized into a racist, classist society. And so we all bring our bias to the table. We all have language pet peeves. But acknowledging that language prejudice exists and learning to spot it is the start. 16/
The English language isn’t at risk if someone says ‘less friends’ instead of ‘fewer friends’ without you correcting it. “But surely that will lead to chaos!” Nope. False. What IS at risk: the social fabric. The social fabric that unfairly elevates some and oppresses others 17/
Being a ‘grammar nazi’ doesn’t make you a literal nazi, obviously. But it isn’t harmless, either! Language prejudice is an super common way that people with good intentions reinforce social inequality. Science is real. And if you believe in science, believe this, too. /end
Adding: I want to reiterate that this thread is applicable far beyond just English. But in lieu of my soundcloud, this talk by @raciolinguistic is necessary viewing:
