A disturbing movement is afoot to “liberate” the English language from the “dictatorship” of rules.  From what I have been reading on Web sites where I answer questions about grammar and usage, many people – including, alas, some grammarians and linguists – are advocating a dangerously high degree of tolerance for usage that, until recently, would have been labeled “substandard.” 

The practices that are tolerated range from ignoring the possessive case of nouns (Mens room, Joes Diner) to accepting common but incorrect locutions (Me and Mary went, The media says, This data) to the endorsement of Internet shorthand (ive rcvd 2 msgs from u). 

The rationale behind such tolerance of the intolerable is that, if most of the people are using language this way, we must accept it.  In other words, if most people violate the rules, the rules must change to accommodate what people do. 

I submit that most people violate the rules because they are (a) ignorant of the rules, (b) too lazy to learn them, or (c) both of the above.  It isn’t as if they exhaustively studied grammar, usage, and the history of the language and, after due consideration, decided that the rule had outlived its usefulness.  Rather, it is an extension of the politically correct precept that everyone is entitled to do his own thing (excuse me – his or her own thing). 

Let’s be perfectly clear on the issue.  Grammarians are sometimes described as being in one of two camps – descriptive grammarians and prescriptive grammarians.  The former believe that the function of grammar is essentially to describe what people already do; the latter believe that the function of grammar is essentially to prescribe what people should do. 

In reality, most grammarians and teachers of writing take a position somewhere between these extremes.  In my opinion, the sensible position for a grammarian to take is to be fundamentally prescriptive but to be open-minded enough to accept change when change is warranted.  Language is dynamic; it is constantly undergoing evolutionary change.  Were this not so, Shakespearean (Elizabethan) English and modern English would be virtually identical. 

However, it is folly to arbitrarily discard rules that serve and have served our purposes well, many of them for centuries.  Perhaps we should think of them not as rules but as conventions.  They exist not because some English professors thought they were a great idea but because educated people have agreed that they work. 

Consider, for example, the existence of the possessive case of nouns, which linguistic anarchists wish to abolish.   This convention serves to distinguish between, for example, the plural of boy – boys – and the word to designate that something belongs to the boys – boys’.  It also gives us a convenient shorthand for saying “the house belonging to the boy” (the boy’s house) or “the house belonging to the boys” (the boys’ house), without having to burden ourselves with prepositional phrases (of the boy / of the boys). 

No reasonable argument whatsoever exists to justify trashing such a useful convention.  It may be a nuisance to learn the rules for the use of the possessive apostrophe, but it is a bigger nuisance to have to ponder context every time we read an s-ending noun so as to determine whether it is a simple plural noun or a possessive noun. 

When I teach grammar, I take pains to explain the logic or rationale behind the rules (conventions).  I believe that it is important for students to understand that the conventions of grammar and usage have not been determined by whim.  These conventions have come about via an ongoing analysis of words and word relationships with one goal in mind – to communicate with one another, not in some haphazard manner but according to agreed-upon rules. 

The development of language is an evolutionary process, which is, by definition, a slow process.  What we have today in the misguided attempts to liberate language from the rules is a revolutionary process – a revolution of dunces, I should add.  It serves no purpose and is driven by whim and ignorance.  In its extreme, it has given rise to a generation of students who think that distinguishing between there and their is an academic triviality with which they need not be concerned.  And it breeds the kind of arrogance that declares, “So what if you have to read my sentence three times to understand it – that’s your problem.” 

As I implied above, such self-centered insistence on one’s entitlement to do whatever one pleases (I have the right to use language in whatever way is most convenient for me) is contrary to the very purpose of language – to connect us, not to separate us.  As great writers throughout the centuries have proven, there is ample room to express individuality within the broad framework of acceptable usage. 

As for Internet shorthand, it is immature.  It declares, “Hey, look at me!  Ain’t I trendy?”  It embodies a quintessentially sophomoric approach to communication that is best left to prepubescent teens.  If it has a place, it is in chat rooms and in instant massages – and nowhere else.  Internet shorthand is to mature writing what aboriginal grunts are to coherent speech.

Rich Turner