Below you\u2019ll find our New Year\u2019s resolutions for self-appointed guardians of the English language. We language cops need our own code of ethics to protect us from ourselves and shield others from our self-righteousness.<\/p>\n
The Stickler\u2019s Ten Commandments for 2016<\/strong><\/p>\n 1)<\/strong> Thou shalt proofread<\/strong>. Proofreading your work is a dying art\u2014but why is that? Do we really think that everything we write is effortlessly perfect on the first try?<\/p>\n 2)<\/strong> No correcting someone\u2019s informal correspondence<\/strong>. If you get an email that says, \u201cWe just want whats our\u2019s,\u201d stifle that impulse to respond with a dissertation on apostrophes. Maybe your correspondent is just kidding around\u2014or didn\u2019t proofread.<\/p>\n 3)<\/strong> \u2026 And casual conversation gets a lot of leeway too<\/strong>. Language purists ought to ease off when people are just relaxing and making small talk. No one ever mistook a Super Bowl bash for a summit conference.<\/p>\n 4)<\/strong> No using fancy words when simpler ones will do<\/strong>. A barrage of big words is impressive the way a mesomorph bench pressing six hundred pounds is impressive.<\/p>\n 5) Always look it up<\/strong>. Twenty-first century technology makes it quick and painless to look up words like mesomorph<\/em>. But for whatever reason, most people just won\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n 6)<\/strong> No correcting strangers<\/strong>. Grownups are so touchy nowadays.<\/p>\n 7)<\/strong> Do correct your kids\u2019 grammar<\/strong>. It\u2019s not belittling if you do it right; they may even thank you someday. The English they hear all the time\u2014from their peers, the media, even some teachers\u2014sets a horrid example. Good English deserves equal time.<\/p>\n 8)<\/strong> \u2026 But keep it private<\/strong>. Never give grammar lectures within earshot of innocent bystanders or service animals.<\/p>\n 9)<\/strong> No excuses when <\/strong>you<\/strong><\/em> slip<\/strong>. We all make mistakes. If you\u2019re nailed red-handed, don\u2019t try to wiggle out of it.<\/p>\n 10)<\/strong> Know what you\u2019re talking about<\/strong>. Here is something your English teacher never told you: the rules change. So before you cry foul, how do you know you\u2019re right? There are many myths about \u201cproper\u201d English floating around.<\/p>\n A century ago, contact<\/em> as a verb was banned in polite society, and anyone who said, \u201cI will contact you soon\u201d was dismissed as a philistine. In the 1970s, hopefully<\/em> was considered a ghastly vulgarity, and anyone who said, \u201cHopefully, the disco won\u2019t be too crowded\u00a0tonight<\/span><\/span>\u201d could be ostracized from the cool crowd. Today, no one has a problem with contact<\/em> or \u2022 Do you have your own \u201ccommandments\u201d to add to the list? Please send them in. We would enjoy receiving and sharing them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Below you\u2019ll find our New Year\u2019s resolutions for self-appointed guardians of the English language. We language cops need our own code of ethics to protect us from ourselves and shield others from our self-righteousness. The Stickler\u2019s Ten Commandments for 2016 1) Thou shalt proofread. Proofreading your work is a dying art\u2014but why is that? Do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,10,12,25,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apostrophes","category-definitions","category-effective-writing","category-humor","category-proofreading"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nhopefully<\/em> \u2026 but you may find yourself ostracized for saying \u201cdisco.\u201d<\/p>\n