Grammar: Friend or Foe?

Over drinks recently I had an interesting conversation with a friend about grammar. We agreed that despite the best efforts of language teachers most people habitually break the basic rules of grammar (including ourselves). For instance, her family likes to say that she has a “doctorates.” My family – ah shucks, a lot of people in Indiana - always say don’t instead of doesn’t, like in “he don’t know any better” (or for that matter, “he don’t know no better”.) She concluded that it just makes sense for people to say doctorates. After all, it is bachelors not bachelor and masters not master. Why not add an “s” on to doctorate to be consistent? I concluded that we really don’t need “do not” and “does not”. Why not just have one phrase for singular and plural? If many (if not most??) Americans say “they don’t” and “he don’t”, why not abandon the grammar rule?

Which brings me to my main point. Language evolved spontaneously. It wasn’t planned by government officials (or private officials for that matter). It evolved over thousands of years through the interactions of billions of people trying to communicate with each other. Shouldn’t it continue to evolve? Why do we have these ivory tower grammar officials continuing to state the rules even though most people don’t stick to them? Shouldn’t they adjust their rules to the reality of everyday life? This, I think, is the essence of libertarianism vs. socialism. Socialists want to re-make society the way they think it should be through force. Libertarians want to let the voluntary interactions of millions of people unfold naturally. It would be easy to call language teachers fascists who want to impose their views on others, but it wouldn’t be fair. After all, language is still privatized. People don’t go to jail for using bad grammar. The state doesn’t control language beyond stating what is and is not “good” grammar. Bad grammar isn’t punished by the government (unlike the private sector which discriminates against people who use “bad” grammar). In essence, language is thoroughly private. This is why it evolves naturally, why new words come into existence without central planning, why certain phrases have meaning to certain groups of people, and why there have been tremendous changes in the “everyday” language (see Mark Twain vs. Dave Barry). Of course, it’s true that government has a role in language. It endorses specific rules of grammar and promotes them. But this role is minimal.

The real question is why has the private sector (i.e. language teachers and intellectuals in general) refused to change their product (language) to the consumers who actually use it? Is it because without these busy-bodies communication would slowly crumble to the point that people couldn’t communicate with each other? This would suggest that language is a market failure, in which case we need to tax bad grammar and subsidize good grammar. More likely, however, the language police sustain themselves through governmental action. Sure their way of speaking may be “official”, but it’s a lonely category. Most people ignore many of the rules and do just fine.

Up Next, “Is English the Most Un-Libertarian Language?” Why all the exceptions to the rules? “I” before “E” except after “C”? I mean who is “C” to get a special exemption.