Some people just don't know their Italian

no okay but here’s the thing about language.

it’s one thing to police spelling and grammar; it’s a douchebag thing to do, especially if you’re using it as a means of refuting an argument (“you spelled that word wrong, therefore I don’t have to listen to you!” that’s not an argument. even worse is “you used the wrong form of there/their/they’re, therefore you’re stupid, therefore you’re wrong,” which is not only an invalid argument, but ableist to boot!)—but, using “nonstandard” spelling and grammar can contribute to a loss of understanding and can bar effective communication. the reason we have a distinction between “there,” “their,” and “they’re” is to prevent ambiguous sentences! and the fact that they come from completely different roots, but, w/e.

the point is, effective communication by using “standard” spelling and grammar is cool and should be encouraged! whining about improper comma usage that, while breaking all the rules you might have learned in sixth grade, doesn’t create an ambiguous message, is not cool! and it also prevents a lot of freedom in creative writing, where breaking the rules of grammar is often required in order to convey a certain concept (see: my tendency to express a character’s thought process by use of lots of clauses with no periods, creating a rambling but still somewhat linear tone).

what I really take an issue with is people actively preventing the evolution of language—trying to stamp out neologisms, saying the use of a word that’s taken on a new definition over time is “wrong,” saying that any deviation from “standard” english (which, by the way, what? english has been evolving and changing since before it was called english. do we still write like chaucer? like shakespeare? give it a few centuries and people will have to re-transcribe and translate our english into whatever form of english they’ll use in the future, the same as we have to do with beowulf.

and that’s okay.

it’s beautiful. linguists are going to find the evolution of emoticons and hashtags and txtspk fascinating years from now. I certainly do!

TL;DR (which is a pretty cool neologism right there) LANGUAGE IS AWESOME, STOP TRYING TO PREVENT IT FROM AWESOMEING EVEN FURTHER.