I’ve been wanting to write this post since last may when I completed ENG 311: Grammar and the Politics of English. Before I took this class I never thought of grammar correction as anything more than being an annoying stickler. Now that I realize the implications grammar “correction” carries, I see it everywhere and cringe every time.
A page I used to “like” on facebook, Grammarly, shames grammatical errors.
People on the internet will use someone’s grammatical errors/typos to discredit what they’re saying.
And on a much larger and disturbing scale, school and society will teach you that certain dialects and slang words are “improper” and denote a lack of intelligence/refinement.
“I been here.”
There are textbooks that would label the above sentence as “grammatically incorrect” but every dialect has its own set of grammar rules. This sentence actually IS grammatically correct in the dialect of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). Thus, labeling a sentence like this as “incorrect” or “improper” is a akin to labeling anyone who speaks AAVE as improper. Language is a huge component of identity so you’re rejecting more than what they’re saying; you’re rejecting who they are. Continue reading
College In The Cornfield 