Grammar, the Nuke of Class Warfare
It never ceases to amuse when the only way someone can get to the Moral Higher Ground in a debate is to resort to… GRAMMAR. You know what I mean. You're plumb in the middle of a feisty exchange over the death penalty, or abortion, or whether or not Charmin should be squeezed when your opponent corrects your grammar. And they always add it as the clincher, add it after their final lame point as a last jab in the chops. I always translate it as something along the following lines: "Well, heck, I may not know diddly about the electric chair as a deterrent to crime, but any transitive-totin' fool would have known to employ the pluperfect just then." And good people, I make my living upholding the virtues of English and its undergarment - correct grammar. This ain't a case of sour grapes speaking. I dearly love grammar. Give me a juicy Dickensian paragraph-long palaver of a sentence to parse, and I'm in hog heaven.
Folks, there IS no correct English. No such beast. If I had my way, the latest Edith Hamilton's Mythology would be updated to include this oft-touted creature of fantasy. It's all context, context, context. Wear that pink taffeta muumuu with the aubergine frills to most funerals, and you'll be sure to offend a whole passel of folks. At my funeral, however, I cordially - nay, devoutly - pray you WILL wear it. The more festive, the more it will fit the Irish wake-ful, party-till-you-drop atmosphere I want at my own He's-Gone-on-to-the-Great-Gig-in-the-Sky Celebration. Comes down to what is appropriate. When in England, feel free to bum a cigarette off the local neighborhood homophobe by asking for "a fag," but here in the U.S. expect some decided hostility from the same homophobe. Context, context, context. Are Americans wrong to be "in the hospital" while the British are merely "in hospital"? Actually, yes, if their IV is drippin' on the wrong shore.
Even in the same zip code, however, there's no correct/incorrect. Only appropriate/inappropriate. The grammarian with the pince-nez who asks the belligerent drunk and his mates, "excuse me, but to just whom were you directing that insult?" can explain this concept quite eloquently - er, after he's collected his scattered teeth from underfoot.
Nevertheless, people will continue smugly to correct the grammar around them - even when not in mid-debate - because it allows them to feel superior. It's a precious, albeit superficial, badge that sets them above the other. It's class warfare at its most subtle, and therefore its most malign, allowing one to hold one's education over another: "I know a preposition from a conjunction; therefore, I am inherently better than thou, knave."
Some will rise to the defense of Grammar, arguing that when we give up the laws and distinctions of correct grammar, we in effect surrender to imprecise language and therefore sloppy thought. They're not entirely wrong. There is a line in the sand where we do cross over into the Land of the Foggy - imprecise, careless language which IS indeed a direct reflection of the flawed thought behind that language.
Therefore, good people, I am NOT advocating the abandonment of correct grammar. Just respect its proper time and place. Don't misuse it as a corrupt weapon in class warfare. And above all, if you're discussing the issue of Palestine's independence, don't - saints preserve us - bring up the other fella's improper use of the subjunctive. There's something downright sinister about that.