Gotten

[selectortone]

Whilst discussion of such may be of academic interest, they may simply serve to feed the egos of those who arrogantly believe their learning evidences superiority.

For goodness sake - it was just an attempt to add some humour to a forum that is all doom and gloom and bitterness and rancour nowadays. A light-hearted jab at our American cousins. The bit at the end about the semicolon was meant to be a clue. Sorry you don't get my sense of humour. Not intended to show arrogance or ego and certainly not superiority.

Good lord, what have you got to do to get a laugh these days?

 

[guineafowl21]

I like David Mitchell’s take on apostrophes (paraphrased):

“I spent time learning how to use apostrophes. Now I’m told they don’t matter, because the people who didn’t learn them have won. I want that time back!”

 

[John Brown]

I am unconcerned that I don't know how to use an apostrophe correctly. Pedants agonise and create artificial ambiguous examples - eg: "eats, shoots and leaves" (put the apostrophe(s) wherever you want). Context and syntax generally solves the problem.

Unlike poetry where words and phrases may stir emotions, language is principally about communication. Conveying meaning in a way the recipient understands and can react appropriately.

Latin is an archaic preserve of close to zero relevance today. Split infinitives, words in common usage in the 19th century or earlier etc have no place in modern communication.

Far from improving the quality of dialogue they act as barriers to understanding. Whilst discussion of such may be of academic interest, they may simply serve to feed the egos of those who arrogantly believe their learning evidences superiority.

Eats shoots and leaves(eats roots and leaves, when I first heard the underlying joke from an Australian I used to work with), is more about commas, isn't it?

 

[JimJay]

I am unconcerned that I don't know how to use an apostrophe correctly. Pedants agonise and create artificial ambiguous examples - eg: "eats, shoots and leaves" (put the apostrophe(s) wherever you want). Context and syntax generally solves the problem.

Unlike poetry where words and phrases may stir emotions, language is principally about communication. Conveying meaning in a way the recipient understands and can react appropriately.

Latin is an archaic preserve of close to zero relevance today. Split infinitives, words in common usage in the 19th century or earlier etc have no place in modern communication.

Far from improving the quality of dialogue they act as barriers to understanding. Whilst discussion of such may be of academic interest, they may simply serve to feed the egos of those who arrogantly believe their learning evidences superiority.

The problem with linguistic laxity is that there are people who take advantage of it to mislead or cheat others; in addition, a cavalier attitude to punctuation is often associated with the use of incorrect vocabulary. The whole point of language is to enable us to communicate in a way which conveys information accurately and efficiently, hence the rules of grammar to ensure that we can uniformly structure that information in an agreed way. Using words we don't understand correctly is simply increasing the noise while interfering with the signal. Likewise, the rules of punctuation are there to ensure that our meaning is precise: it's not "pedantry" to wish to impart knowledge efficiently, but it IS ridiculous to expect other people to guess what you mean because you won't, or can't, express yourself clearly. You might as well say that everyone understands your intention and context when you get behind the wheel of a car, so why bother to learn the rules that govern safe driving or submit to unnecessary rules like obeying speed limits, buying insurance, servicing your vehicle, getting an MOT and other such superfluous pedantry?

An insistence that the rules don't apply to ME is dangerous and foolish in many contexts, including driving and communicating with other people.