Use Bad Grammar, Don't Let Bad Grammar Use You
Lately, I have encountered an increasing number of people who are popping blood vessels over what they perceive to be the deterioration of proper English in the United States. I don’t know if it ever occurs to them that hardly anyone in North America speaks proper classic English anymore and that most of us don’t consider most modern adaptations of English bad. Everyone makes language adapt to their purposes. The debate seems to arise over how much we are allowed to bend language. These self-anointed grammar police mostly complain about the misuse of punctuation and abbreviations since a generation raised on texting and Facebook does seem to have an obsession with ellipses, LOL’s, : ), SMH’s, misplaced semicolons, and any other grammatical error known to humankind. Although I do eventually arrive at a similar conclusion as these expert grammarians—proper grammar is superior to improper grammar—I do find room within the bounds of effective communication when butchered grammar is the best medium for an intended message.
I’m not a lover of grammar, but a lover of communication. I love grammar to the extent that it advances communication. After all, good grammar and good communication usually work in tandem. The question must be asked, however, does proper grammar ever inhibit good written or spoken communication? By good communication I mean the act of a receiver receiving an intended encoded message from a sender.
To take this elementary process of communication even a step further, communication at its best is not merely about the transference of an intended message, but moreover a message which provokes an intended action or mode of thought. For instance, Gabriel García Márquez's classic work, One Hundred Years of Solitude, uses the best of literary techniques to, among other things, influence readers toward pacifism. When your momma used to tell you to "Go do the dishes now!" she envisioned that you would stop playing video games, get off the couch, and begin cleaning the dishes. Otherwise, if you did not obey, she envisioned you getting smacked upside your head!
On the other hand, I have witnessed others use butchered grammar techniques, both written and spoken, to give a beautiful message which would have been diminished had they blindly adhered to conventional grammatical rules. The best example I can think of is John Perkins. Perkins is an ex farm boy with a fourth grade Mississippi education, yet he is one of the best communicators I have ever heard. Whenever he speaks he usually makes all kinds of grammatical blunders, and he knows it too. I once heard him joke that if God gave him the gift of tongues that he would ask for the gift of English instead! Yet, his style works for him because he recognizes that he—stuttering, mishaps, stammering and all—is the message. The power of his message spans beyond any content he could conjure up; the power of his message is that a messenger from humble beginnings from the South could prophetically speak to the soul of this world.
This is what I'm really trying to say: Deviation from conventional rules of grammar is justifiable and sometimes necessary to communicate some intended messages to certain audiences. The issue is not that people abuse grammar, but that they do so ignorantly without an intended purpose.
Please forgive me for my unintended grammatical blunders in this essay, but please applaud me for the ones that got my message across better.