Does Grammar Really Matter?

"The English language is going to hell."

How many times have you heard someone say that, or something similar? If you're anything like me, quite a lot; you've no doubt even said it a few times, in response to someone misspelling a lot of words or using improper sentence structure or whatnot. But does it really matter if someone ain't so good with words?

"Ain't" is a perfect example. How does using the word "ain't" degrade the language? I've never seen a person confused by the word. Everyone knows what it means. So why is it wrong to use it? I've heard that it makes the person sound uncultured or unsophisticated, but who the hell cares about that stuff? Practically everyone is "uncultured" and "unsophisticated." (Those words might as well not even mean anything beyond "I think this person is beneath me.")

Of course, when it makes the sentence unintelligible, bad grammar should be condemned, but that's pretty rare, isn't it? If I use the word "lie" when grammatically I should use the word "lay," who would be confused? Who would care? I suppose that's the bulk of my argument - does it matter if it is "wrong" if there is no confusion?

more examples:
"He should of taken the next train."
Does pointing out that it, to be grammatically correct, should be "should have taken" honestly help anyone? Does it change anything?
"I said he could but, his mother said he couldn't."
The comma, according to the rules, should go before "but," not after, but typically, people pause after saying "but," and a comma is supposed to go where there is a pause. Does it really matter if someone makes this mistake?

NOTE: Please do not assume that I want grammar lessons taken out of school. Do not assume that I view grammar as useless. I am asking a question, not stating my position on the issue. My goal isn't to get people on my side; it is to get people to open their minds and think. I hate that I have to spell this out, but I've found that it often needs to be said.

It really depends. Spoken language naturally is far different from something writ (Or typed, in this case) As dialect may sound really wrong if spoken as compared to typed, or vice versa. I personally cannot stand poor grammar or spelling. It's the only language I know, so I may as well not be a lazy prick like most of the other people, and speak it correctly.

All of this dumbing down of the language really is pathetic. All the stupid fucking slang and so forth make us all seem stupider from having listened.

So in short, yes, grammar is important. And I'll stab the eyes out of someone who disagrees.

I think grammar matters, to a certain extent. If there's enough mistakes, I'll correct it, but if it's noing serious, like a missing comma or something I'll let it go.

But that's the thing - who says that it makes us seem dumber? An intimate knowledge of grammar does not mean that the person is smart. It's simply knowing something very well. I know a lot about The Simpsons, but I wouldn't use that as an example of how I am intelligent. I think just about everyone has the ability to know something very well.

But that leads us into a conversation about intelligence and what exactly it is and how it can be measured (if at all). That would be a little off-topic, but I'd still like to hear anything anyone has to say on the subject.

Nah....... if the topic is interesting it doesn't matter to me..

as long as i can understand what youre trying to say I dont care. i usually focus more on the message not the medium

Grammar is important. You have to structure your linguistic output in a manner so that other people can understand it. This is so fundamental that it's built into human brains and certain types of brain damage will make a person unable to produce grammatical language. Every language has a structure in one sense or another, and some linguists think there may be a "universal grammar" that all languages to conform to which is a consequence of how our brains are constructed.

What you're touching on with things like "ain't" and "should of" aren't necessarily grammatical issues. "ain't" is used in a very specific way and there are similarly flexible words of negation in a lot of other languages. If you go back even a few decades, you can read people talking about how some word or phrase is going to destroy the purity of the language, and it's something that everybody has adopted today and has become part of normal speech like the word "hopefully". In the case of "should of", it's an example of how the words "of" and the abbreviated word "have" are pronounced identically in casual speech, and an inattentive writer can confuse the two. You also see this with the word "than".

Usually the people who go on diatribes about the destruction of linguistic purity have an agenda to push. It usually involves disliking people culturally different than them or putting themselves in a position of social power by claiming to be experts. "Standard language" is often simply the dialect spoken by the most culturally powerful group in a language community. But for all the effort spent on trying to come up with style rules and forbidden words, language always changes out from under the powerful.

That said, there's certainly standards and rules that will improve the clarity of what you write. A good writer will understand this and navigate the world accordingly. With spoken or written language, you produce it to communicate ideas to another person, and you need to make a reasonable effort to accommodate them.

Every language spoken or written has rules regarding it's structure and general flow. Sentence structure, word structure to syntax are rules of language. Each peice is a component for proper English (or whatever language you speak). Lets say for instance sentence structure, if we ignore that then we start having difficulty understanding the message being conveyed by the other person. If grammar degrades to a point then we couldn't understand one another even if all other components of our language were intact.

(I got lazy after I saw LD's post)

In short: Grammar is about as important as proper placement of your internal organs. Well, maybe not that important.

The thing is, grammar can't "degrade". Have you ever been aware of a community that suddenly lost the ability to talk to each other because the grammar descended into an unintelligible mess? It can slowly change over time, but the way human brains work is that we generally unconsciously agree on changes.

For example, English is a Subject-Verb-Object language today. It used to be a Subject-Object-Verb language, which you can see in some old phrases like "Till death do us part" and "With this ring I thee wed". There wasn't some traumatic period of time where every English speaker couldn't make sense of what anybody else was saying. It just gradually changed over time without anybody's deliberate decision to do so.

I'm getting a lot of this stuff from a book called "The Language Instinct" by a linguist named Steven Pinker. It's a really great introduction to all the different fields of linguistics.

Using "degrade" wasn't exactly the right term for what I was trying to imply. Anyways, in the span of history "degradation" is simply a change. I guess the word I was looking for we deviation. If grammar of one body deviates too far from the norm then the two groups have difficulty communicating.

I just spell things the way I would say them irl. ie; Oh hullorh fellerhs.

It matters if solely as a simple indicator if the person your talking to is an idiot or not. Also it'd start getting pretty hard to read novels if everyone was just allowed to pick and choose grammatical rules (not that authors don't already somewhat do that).

This ^

To me, as long as it's readable, I don't really care if there's a grammar mistake here or there.

@Feon

Seriously, what?

Az long z u dont try 2 wryte lik dis we koo.

Shaggy, thy examples made me lol.

There's a difference between "bad grammar" and "not having a stick up your rectum".

You're looking like a clown if you're going to use perfect english grammar at any given time, it feels forced and unnatural. Ain't shit wrong with ain't.

And people lacking the knowledge or intelligence to use a language in a "decent" way are a complete different matter than the use of slight grammatical habits.

if i can understand what the other one is writing, then i have no problems with minor grammar mistakes. Atleast when chatting or posting. Im using correct grammar at work tough - boss would kill me if im going to write with 1337-messages :/

Not having grmmar is bearable, but it has its limits



As long as it doesn't end up like this one, grammar doesn't really matter

English is a combination of latin and anglo-saxon terms.naturally people have their own interpretations of the language. With this being said I feel the comfortability level of using proper grammar is due to the urge to simplify and pun the langauge to what the user deems fit. Some call it being lazy, some say it is ignorance, some say people can not separate slang from proper subject verb agreement.whatever the case grammar does matter and how one uses it can help or hurt depending on the situation.

Grammar is important, as without it we lack the necessary rules for sentence structure and proper syntax. Since grammar defines how a sentence is written, ie: Subject location, verb location, object location; and how to use the proper words it's necessary to be able to convey what you're trying to say clearly.

For example, a foreigner with improper grammar knowledge could change a sentence such as this:
"Excuse me, can you help me find my way to Third street?"
To this:
"Excuse, Third Street, where?"

Like that, asking for directions suddenly becomes harder because of poor grammar. And that's just something as simple as asking for directions, imagine if that same person was trying to explain something complicated.

As for what you were directly referring to though, small mistakes such as ain't, using then instead of than, a misplaced or missing comma, and should of instead of should have are all overlookable since the message is still able to be conveyed.

Grammar is important, but small mistakes and the occasional use of slang isn't something to obsess over. Only when your sentences become hard to understand or indecipherable do you need to improve your grammar.

EDIT: @Uzumaki101: That's a great example of why grammar is important. That letter is difficult to understand.

i agree