I’ve stopped trying to make people speak and write properly. Or at least I’ve stopped expending the effort with strangers. I still annoy my friends with the difference between “well” and “good”, between “number” and “amount”, even though I think continual exposure has brought about in them a special immunity.

For one thing, it’s not worth the amount of time and effort. I’m not an educator. No-one is paying me to increase literacy. I haven’t, that I can remember, volunteered to do so.

For another, there needs to be a divide between the people who can speak well, and the people who cannot. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Badly educated people generally speak badly educated language, and vice versa. Only some sort of misguided egalitarianism would try to force stupid people to speak smart English: you have to understand that these people don’t want to speak good English. They don’t care about speaking well.

I’m not saying that these people are worthless. Far from it. Everyone has his place in society. But let’s not pretend that all people are the same; there are smart people and stupid people, rich people and poor people, well-spoken people and the almost-illiterate.

When I speak and when I write like I know the English language, I display something about myself. Is it a bad thing to say that I’m in a different class from rednecks, hillbillies, gang members, street people, and the sorts of people that r1t3 <3 71k3 tHiS u n0? I don’t think so.

Tags: language, opinions, snobbery