In my article on academic writing, I said, in a footnote: “Generally speaking, you should not take grammar advice from non-linguists [emphasis in original].” A short while later, I realized I should have been clearer about what I meant by “grammar.”1 For linguists, “grammar” is the rules of the game. These rules run so deep that native speakers never have to think about them.2 They don’t even see them as rules. Native French speakers never have to think about the gender of a noun, native Latin speakers never had to drill themselves on the declensions, and native English speakers rarely have trouble with prepositions. Nearly every person capable of language has perfect grammar in whatever dialect they grew up with.3
The problem arises when non-linguists use “grammar” when they really mean “usage, mechanics, and style.” In this view, non-standardized usage—ironic instead of coincidental, hisself instead of himself, or disinterested instead of not interested—is “bad grammar.” Excessive use of the passive voice is “bad grammar.” Combining two independent clauses with a comma is “bad grammar.” Unfamiliarity with a common idiom is “bad grammar.” But no serious linguist actually believe that any of these things are bad grammar. Bad grammar would be saying “book that’s the your liked father” instead of “that’s the book your father liked.”4
My point, however, is not that you should start saying “more better” or “he doesn’t know nothing” in formal writing. As one English teacher clarifies in an essay critiquing standardized English, “I teach [my students] the rules. It’s the language of power in this country, and I would be cheating [them] if I pretended otherwise.”5 My point is that those of us who teach or talk about formal writing need to be more careful with how we talk about grammar. Terminological slippage has serious consequences: every time we say that non-standardized usage is “bad grammar,” we are telling millions and millions of native English speakers (particularly poor, working-class, and Black people) that they do not know how to speak their own language.
Thus when I say “don’t take grammar advice from non-linguists,” I refer to “grammar” in the strict linguistic sense, and my point is that you should never let someone convince you that you don’t know how to speak your own language. By all means, take usage, mechanics, or style advice from non-linguists. But understand that usage and style are ultimately matters of opinion, and that being unfamiliar with the most current opinions is not the sign of an inferior mind.
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I meant to publish this in late July. You’ll have to forgive me; the first five or six drafts were too long and poorly organized.
I don’t mean to exclude sign languages here. I just don’t know very much about them and can’t confidently assume that everything I’m about to say also applies to them.
My impulse is to say “every person,” but I understand that some individuals with language disorders have difficulty with grammar.
Adapted from Dick Leith, A Social History of English, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 74.
Linda Christensen, “Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard?” In Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word, 2nd ed. (Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools, 2017), 103.