Broadcasters and publishers receive a deluge of complaints about grammar and usage. Anna Maria Tremonti, host of CBC Radio’s The Current, dubs these complainers “the grammaratti.” And I’m sure they’ll be expressing displeasure after the grammar discussion on The Current today.
Tremonti spoke with Ammon Shea, author of Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation. Shea says language is constantly in flux and that holding on to grammar rules is offensive—especially when the sticklers don’t know where the rules come from in the first place.
From the use of hopefully as a sentence adverb to the use of like as a conjunction, Shea embraces what he calls “semantic drift.”
(The grammaratti think hopefully should not be used in this way:
- Hopefully, I’ll win the contract.
They want the sentence to be “correct”:
- It is to be hoped I’ll win the contract.
How’s that for a clunky sentence?)
I agree with Shea. Language is a living thing that evolves with common usage.
The other day, an author I was editing used practice as a verb, over and over. Every editor knows practise is the verb, and practice is the noun.
I don’t make changes unless necessary, so I hauled out the dictionary to see if this is one of those distinctions that has gone blurry.
It is. No changes were made to the author’s text.
When it comes to grammar, where do you, like, draw the line?