The Grammar Fascists

"If you think an apostrophe was one of the 12 disciples of Jesus, you will never work for me. If you think a semicolon is a regular colon with an identity crisis, I will not hire you. If you scatter commas into a sentence with all the discrimination of a shotgun, you might make it to the foyer before we politely escort you from the building." - Kyle Wiens, "I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here's Why."


As some of you may know, I frequent a writing website known as Writer's Digest. It is a great place for information, articles, classes and so on for the writing world. When I hopped on over there today there was an article that caught my attention immediately. "Grammar Rules: CEO Stands Up For Grammar (& Why That’s Important)". 


As far as grammar is concerned I'll admit to a bit of a teeth grinding, hair-pulling reaction to some of what I see on the internet. Let alone the mistakes I find in writing which has supposedly been through the hands of someone paid to catch said mistakes. 

I am nowhere near perfect in the eyes of the Grammar Gods, and as such I rarely call people out on their mistakes. For one, people who make these mistakes probably do not care enough to fix it. I mean really, these are probably not people who lay awake at night fretting over the proper uses of there, they're, and their. 


Secondly, the inevitable back and forth of, "I won't listen to what you have to say because your grammar is horrendous!" and "Oh yeah, well your just a grammar Nazi!", gets old after the millionth time. (Hah, see what I did there?)


Sure, it can be difficult to get past how people write in order to comprehend what they're writing about, or even enjoy the writing. *cough* Fifty Shades of Grey *cough*. Does this mean we should belittle and chastise the people who make these mistakes? Eh, I personally don't think it will make a difference. Does it make them stupid? Not necessarily. Will they come across as such? Probably.

On the other hand if they are complaining about people like the CEO above for not hiring them, I find I have little sympathy. People should understand there are certain expectations that come with certain jobs. 

"If u tiep lik thys", or "Me to! I'll be their in a second", the person should not be surprised if a company passes them over during the hiring process. Spelling is a whole other animal, and it seems to be taking just as much of a beating as grammar these days.

A writer who writes this way, in my oh so humble opinion, is just lazy. Why say you are dedicated to a craft, but only learn how to do half of it? It would be like a carpenter learning how to cut, carve, whittle and what have you, with wood, but not learn how to put it together properly. 


Boggles the mind, it does.


Any way enough of that. Are there grammar mistakes in this post? Yeah, probably. Like I said before, I am certainly not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. That is one of the pitfalls of writing an article on grammar; people will inevitably try and find as many mistakes as they can and blast you for them. 


Aside from people whose fields of interest or careers are specific to the proper crafting of grammar, I feel a certain leniency should be applied. It does not, however, mean all rules are out the window for everyone except them.