I like finding lists of grammar gaffes, sins and miscues. Not because I consider myself a grammarian. (A writer, yes. A grammar guru, no.) It’s my sensibility. I’m more tender-minded than tough-minded, those two categories William James cited when he said that the world is divided into two types of people.
There’s a rough parallel to writing, itself. There are two standards: grammatical correctness and communication competence. Most of the time, they’re identical because competently communicated writing is founded on correct grammar, avoiding solecisms (nonstandard grammar), misplaced modifiers, faulty parallelism, and the barbarous conflation of “its/it’s” and “there/they’re.”
However, there are times when bad grammar communicates better than good grammar — that is, more compellingly that rigidly correct, rules-based grammar. Huck Finn not only doesn’t speak the King’s English; his bad grammar demonstrates his gradually developing ethical sensibility (his rejection of slavery, phony aristocratic airs and empty religiosity). Coming from Huck, “ain’t” ain’t bad English when he’s throwing off moral solecisms of his upbringing, and rejecting the moral norms of a culture that embraces the enslavement of his river companion, Jim.
I know. I know. That’s fiction, you say. Well, yes, it is. But not only. It’s writing.
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