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Grammaries

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Mr. Fussy becomes Mr Pedantic
(courtesy of Katie Edwards)

Through complete weblink happenstance I came across a 2021 article on Medium by Katie Edwards (who?), entitled No, You’re Shit: Grammar Pedantry and Knowing Your Place. As a member of the Grammar Police myself, albeit merely a lowly beat patrolman, I thought it might be worth seventeen minutes of my time. As they say, 'tis better to travel hopefully…

In her treatise, Edwards seems to conflate the activities of those officers who draw attention to the grammatical inadequacies of professionals—be they journalists, media outlets, or signwriters—who should maintain professional standards of communication, with those whose enthusiasm for the task, one might say overzealousness, spills over into unduly criticising individuals on social media without considering the many nuances surrounding the medium. What can I say? Not all Metropolitan Police officers are rapists. (shrug)

She also seems to conflate correcting the written language (of professional communicators) with a dismissal of spoken variants:

Linguists Erin Carrie and Rob Drummond set up the Accentism Project, based at Manchester Metropolitan University to uncover and challenge accent discrimination in everyday life. Carrie and Drummond have conducted extensive research on accent bias and agree that we need to challenge the dominance of arbitrary ‘Standard English’ and encourage students to be proud of their own way of speaking. Through the Accentism Project, Carrie and Drummond found that teaching children that Standard English is superior, correct, and proper, negatively impacts their self-confidence, sense of identity and, since their loved ones will often speak in the same accent and dialect, that criticism extends beyond them and diminishes their whole family. It also risks poisoning family relationships, encouraging children to look down on their working-class parents.

Katie Edwards, No, You’re Shit: Grammar Pedantry and Knowing Your Place, Medium

Accentism—is that even a real word?—seems to be a touchstone for Edwards' inferiority complex, but that's her problem not ours. Irrespective of accent or dialect, the apostrophe, for example, is a written token: the greengrocers shop sign, the greengrocers' shop sign, and the greengrocer's shop sign all sound the same no matter the accent. Only when written do any grammatical mistakes become apparent. So, the work of Bristol's Apostrophiser, who she derides for correcting the misuse of apostrophes on the town's shop signs—signs presumably written by professional signwriters for professional clients—has absolutely nothing to do with elitist discrimination towards flat vowels and sloppy enunciation. That's not to say that discrimination doesn't exist, just that Edwards' conflation of grammar policing and accentism is misrepresentative of the Grammar Police's work.

Jacob Rees-Mogg's style guide, however, with its outmoded post-honorific of esquire for otherwise untitled male members of parliament, rightly came in for ridicule. Unlike Jess Phillips' retort:

I'm so tempted to actually change my name by deed poll to be Jess Phillips Esq., just to press home the point.

Jess Phillips, Twitter

Edwards failed to point out that Esq. as a post-honorific is short for esquire, but Phillips changing her name to Jess Phillips Esq. would mean just that, Esq. not esquire. Then again, Phillips is the Labour Party MP for Birmingham Yardley, so she's probably none too well-educated and talks with a funny accent.*

There's a word for that

Overall, Edwards' disdain for the work of grammaries (don't look it up in the dictionary, it's a playful moniker for tits who pointlessly correct grammatical faux pas) seems to lie with it being elitist. But she's not above a little elitism herself, elsewhere:

Plenty has been said about Rayner’s use of the word scum — and I won’t rehearse that here;

Katie Edwards, Calling Angela Rayner ‘Lauren Cooper’ Is Yet Another Joke At the Expense of All Working-Class Women, Medium

I’ve written about Katie Price and respectability before so I won’t rehearse the same arguments again here.

Katie Edwards, Katie Price: For Once, Let’s Be Kind *Before* The Tragedy Happens, Medium

Most people, I suspect, would interpret rehearse as meaning to practise something in order to attain or maintain proficiency. Its application in terms of repetition or recapitulation of an argument or opinion, while conforming to its common meaning, is itself fairly obscure, at least to me. In fact, I had to double-check it was correct before I wrongly filed it as a misdemeanour at GramPol HQ. Perhaps she's trying to get over her accent sensitivities by using words in clever ways to exercise her intellectual superiority.

I'm not above using such obscurities myself. Only recently, I referred to comedians not as jesters but thalians, followers of the Greek muse of comedy, Thalia. If you search for the term, you have to be fairly dogged to find Merriam-Webster's definition, and even then it's only the adjectival form. I have also in the past referred to actors as trouping in the best traditions of Thespis, dancers as Terpsichore's devotees, and turtle fanciers as cheloniaphiles, for example. The difference being that no bugger's likely to read this shit. All the same, it's still me being a smartarse elitist, if you so please.

I'll try not to rehearse it, although I make no promises.

Grammarian or grammatician?

If you were wondering what the difference is between these two branches of the Grammar Police, then those nice people at Ask Difference have you covered.

A grammarian is a general expert on language rules and usage, while a grammarian focuses specifically on the study of grammar and its theoretical aspects.

Urooj Arif and Fiza Rafique, Grammarian vs. Grammatician — What's the Difference?, Ask Difference

Further differences are also defined, all of which have gained between eight and fourteen upvotes. Not unlike Susan Wojcicki's YouTube, the downvote counts are hidden.

A grammarian is broadly concerned with language rules, syntax, and the correct use of language in both spoken and written forms. They may engage in teaching, writing, or consulting to promote proper language usage. On the other hand, a grammarian delves into the theoretical aspects of grammar, focusing more on the structure and function of language components than on practical application.
While grammarians often work to ensure that language is used correctly in practical settings such as classrooms, publishing, and public speaking, grammarians typically conduct research and analysis, possibly contributing to academic papers or textbooks on the subject of grammar theory.
Grammarians' work is applicable in everyday contexts helping people improve their writing and speaking skills whereas grammarians might work in more specialized academic or linguistic contexts, studying complex grammatical frameworks and their applications in various languages.
The expertise of a grammarian is crucial for maintaining the standardization and teaching of language, which benefits a wide audience including students, professionals, and non-native speakers. In contrast, the contributions of grammarians are more focused on advancing understanding of grammatical structures, which might influence language teaching methodologies and linguistic theory.
While both grammarians and grammarians are experts in language, their focuses differ: grammarians prioritize practical language use and education, and grammarians concentrate on the scientific and theoretical study of language mechanics.

Oh, the humanity of it all!


* [libel-defence] hyperbole for the purpose of parody [/libel-defence]

Having said that, according to her Wackypeedeeyah bio: Phillips was born in Birmingham; has a degree in economic and social history and social policy; and studied for a postgraduate diploma in public sector management, it doesn't state whether or not she attained that lofty goal though. Nevertheless, it's not too far removed from a degree in social media studies and collecting My Little Ponies, so I wasn't being wantonly hyperbolic.