On Mon, 24 Feb 2003, Mark A Mandel wrote: @> While my sense of taste agrees with you, as a linguist I must partially @> disagree. "Poor grammar" in terms of normative (prescriptive, taught) @> grammar is a matter of education and perception; you and I, both trained @> and experienced in reading and writing standard, formal English, will @> largely agree on how to rank a given piece of text, but the people who @> "commit these violations" will not perceive a problem; and in an @> important sense they are right. When they read each others' writing, @> communication is unimpaired by most or all of what we perceive as their @> errors. The people who write to email lists and newsgroups in the same @> abbrevs U C on pagers are often not aware that their audiences in these @> media expect different registers (roughly, styles) of language. Of course. But, shall we say, the set of people who comprehend correct grammar[0] is a superset of the set of people who perpetrate it. That is, if you communicate using correct grammar, the group of people that will understand what you are saying is at its largest size. There may in fact be situations where this is undesireable; the tendency of larval hackers to use "leetspeak" has been noted on this list, for instance. This is as much a method of social identification for them as it is a method of communication; it's meant to frustrate and annoy people who aren't in the know[1]. @> Also, many people who are extremely intelligent and literate @> nevertheless do not have a mastery of English spelling, which is one of @> the world's godawfullest ragbags of inconsistent, ill-fitting parts @> (like the pieces of this metaphor). I have a knack for it, which I can't @> claim credit for unless I'm willing to take blame for my lack of perfect @> pitch or my strongly negative sense of direction. My twelfth grade @> English teacher, one of the wisest and smartest people I've ever known, @> couldn't spell. I wasn't claiming that the sets of intelligent and grammatically correct people do more than intersect. I'm simply saying that if your grammar is correct, you are /perceived/ to be intelligent by your audience. The corollary is that if your grammar is less correct, you are perceived as less intelligent. For some values of correct, viewed in light of the social differences mentioned above, and so on. There may even be social factors which would cause you to want to appear to be less intelligent: I fully believe that many speechwriters deliberately insert grammatical errors into their pets' speeches to humanize them. [0] I hope you'll pardon me if I continue to use the word 'correct' here. [1] Or, if you will, not sufficiently 31337.[2] [2] My fingers feel dirty now.