Ask Lemmy

Have to / need to - At some point in my 20s it was pointed out to me that "need to" is the correct phrase and that "have to" isn't correct. But actually "have to" is used in both English and Spanish "tengo que" which is "have to" or technically "have that". Grammatically, if "have" is a state of being then "have to" is like a state of being with a direction or target implied.

someone corrected me on spelling "at least" "atleast"
like... alright? (wink wink nudge nudge)

anyways I was in a bad mood and wrote a passive aggressive message I ended up not sending

Words condense over time, it's not a crime to not type a space.

do you say "goodbye" or "God be with ye"? what about "gossip" or "farewell"?

What about a purpose misspelling being turned to one of the most common words in conversation? "all correct" -> "oll korect" -> "ok"

By some standards, the Oxford comma is still incorrect grammar. I'll die on the hill that it has utility, and I'm glad it's becoming more of a commonly accepted convention.

outside of like academic settings, anything should go. check out the previous sentence where i inserted an unnecessary “like” as an example. it reflects my train of thought and i type as i think. same thing should go for slang and stuff, if the best way to get your point across is with ideas that have not been accepted by the academic world then that’s totally skibidi tubular, man.

Using "they" as singular. Also, referring to animals besides humans as "he," "she," or "they" instead of "it."

I usually am a grammar nazi, but these are things I do very intentionally.

Most of it. I don't know how people find the energy to give a shit about grammar in informal settings. If I can understand the meaning it's good enough for me.

I’m fine with “free reign” and “beckon call” because the meaning is retained and language evolves.

Nobody actually knows how to use "it begs the question" anyway. Even the ones who think they do.

The one thing I will insist on is the use of is/are. It's pretty simple, if referring to a countable set, use "are". E.g. there are four turtles in my sewer. You would not say "there are too much shit on this webpage", because that shit is uncountable.

I've recently come to the position that really, there isn't truly such a thing as incorrect grammar. There's grammar that doesn't fit the norm for the people one is speaking to, and if it's different enough to impair the ability for the intended audience to understand what you're communicating it can be impractical or inadvisable, but since grammar isn't an intrinsic part of the universe outside of human creation, and since the way it's used changes whenever people "break it's rules" in numbers over time, it can't actually be wrong. After all, someone could view something written in a very closely related foreign dialect as another similar language written correctly, or one's own language written incorrectly, and there isn't really a non-arbitrary way to decide which is the case.