Many grammar geeks tend to be snobby about corrected incorrect grammar. I try not to be. It depends on who the person is and my relationships to them. If I’m writing a general article to an open audience, I try to have fun and in some cases, come across as the grammar police.
ChangeThis features Grammar Need Not Be Cruel to Be Cool by June Casagrande author of Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite. She shares a story about writing to the author of an article who despised split infinitives. Personally, I think split infinitives work and sound better in some cases.
After all, what if the Star Trek voice over said, “To go boldly where no man has gone before… ?” I think plugging “boldly” in between “to” and “go” makes a bigger impact.
Casagrande also discusses the use of “A’s” and “B’s” as opposed to “As” and “Bs.” In the past, I stated that I don’t like apostrophes with anything plural unless it belongs to the object. However, “As” and “Bs” sure looks like “as” and “bs” and B grades aren’t B.S. So I’m OK with “A’s” and “1’s.” Some numbers like 1 look like a letter, so the apostrophe helps distinguish it as a number.
Casagrande and I share the same philosophy regarding grammar. She closes the article:
But if we can avoid the temptation of grammar snobbery, if we can give ourselves permission to make mistakes, if we can think of grammar as a tool or even a toy, well, that’s when grammar really can be cool.
Amen.
I’m sure I have plenty of grammar errors and typos throughout this blog, but it’s a blog not formally written articles with an editor on call. Grammar snobs disagree with that.
By the way, it looks like Lynne Truss is trying to get kids into the grammar game with a children’s book version of her best seller Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.