(no subject)

[fpb]

I just had the depressing experience of trying to correct an adult who did not know the meaning of noun, verb, and conjugation, without sounding snotty. What the Hell do they teach people in schools, if adults don't know the difference between a noun and a verb?

Comments

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

Not to mention those dreaded gerunds

You performed a public service

[joetexx.livejournal.com]

Was the recipient of your correction someone putatively well-educated enough to know better, that is, beyond the level of what Americans call elementary school? If so, he deserves to be embarrassed and you need not be worried about sounding snooty. If he gets mad, pleasantly redirect his anger where it belongs, to those who miseducated him.

I once pointed out the confusion of the possessive "its" for the contracted "it's" to a Ph.D
(in biochemistry) in a passage intended for publication that he asked me to proofread.
He actually got upset when I pointed it out and said I was nit-picking. I was gratified
when he appealed to several of his colleagues and they backed me up.

Housman was discussing criticism, not basic grammar, but I always remember his caustic passage in situations like this:

Frailty of understanding is in itself no proper target for scorn and mockery ... but the unintelligent forfeit their claim to compassion when they begin to indulge in self-complacent airs, and to call themselves sane critics, meaning they are mechanics. And when, relying on their numbers, they pass from self-complacency to insolence, and reprove their betters for using the brains which God has not denied them, they dry up the fount of pity.

Re: You performed a public service

[fpb.livejournal.com]

To be fair, this person did not show any arrogance or snottiness. But neither did he seem to feel that he was missing something. I let the matter drop, so you can't really say I performed a service to anyone.

Apart from anything else, I am scared of my own temper.

Pride

[sanscouronne.livejournal.com]

People are just too darned sensitive, and feel personally affronted when others try to salvage the English language.
I do not know if it is an English-speaking world phenomenon to be so flippant about grammar, spelling, etc., but it's a pity to see such a rich language abused by those who should know better.

In France, by contrast, people never hesitated to correct my grammatical errors or defects in pronunciation. I was told by my professor that this is actually a sign of goodwill from the French, in addition to being part of a culture of respect towards the language. In any event, I was VERY grateful to be corrected.

Inferior education, in most cases, is not a sufficient excuse for such errors in one's native language, and we would all benefit by constantly correcting one another.