Which Grammar Rules Do You Ignore?

Posted on by Chris The Story Reading Ape

Virginia raises some great points and would love to hear what rules YOU IGNORE šŸ˜ƒ

vanderso's avatarJust Can't Help Writing

Typewriter publishAs I noted a few posts ago, in his article ā€œThe Phenomenology of Error,ā€ Joseph Williams categorized errors by type. Among his more interesting categories, in my view, were those errors that the experts make even as telling us not to (and nobody notices). He also had a category of grammatically correct constructions that sound so odd when we use them that we generally prefer the error.

These categories change with time, since language and usage do, of course. But his discussion of them made me think about the kinds of errors we can and maybe should ignore and, in fact, the kinds of rules we should ignore.

Here are three of my ā€œrules I can ignoreā€ (if I want to). Do you agree with me on these? What are yours?

Three question marks printed on a typewriter

The ā€œthat/whichā€ distinction.

Okay, I donā€™t ignore it, but from what Iā€™ve seen, a whole lotā€¦

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14 thoughts on “Which Grammar Rules Do You Ignore?”

  3. Well, as an editor, I know that the distinction between who/whom is fading away, so I don’t correct it in dialogue. I don’t have a huge problem with which/that—I have a bigger problem with that/who! “The policeman that pulled out his gun…” No, it should be “The policeman WHO pulled out his gun…” šŸ˜€

    And I don’t have a problem with the singular they. šŸ™‚

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  4. Thanks, Chris, for reblogging this. I enjoyed this immensely and came up with a lengthy answer at Virginia’s blog.

    Mostly I have trouble with someone who uses a singular they for themself (and no, I don’t mean “themselves” — I’m talking about a gender-fluid individual who does not like either “he” or “she” and instead goes by “they” despite being one singular person.) That is what trips me up the most, though I try to be sensitive to it as I have a sweet transgender romance coming out before the end of the year.

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