Well this has gone a long way since I last looked!
I think it is important to remember that in face to face conversation polite or courteous people will adjust the way they speak to move closer to the speech of others. This can involve non verbal aspects of communication such as use of hand gestures and 'personal space' as well as accent, dialect and register. We subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) notice the extent to which people do this and this becomes part of what we know about the kind of person they are. A person who steadfastly insists on 'maintaining standards' and refuses to adapt to others is seen as a prig or a pedant and sees others as lazy or sloppy.
When people address crowds they face the same problems (even when the crowds are self-selecting, like supporters at a political rally) and some participants may feel patronised or talked over while others feel the speaker was on their wavelength.
When we write, particularly when we write to/for people we have not met, it may be more difficult to make courteous adjustments and this is where conventions are particularly useful. Knowing what may irritate people allows us to choose either to avoid those things or to deploy them effectively. The conventions may be described as 'rules' but that ignores the fact that they are by no means universally agreed, and they change over time.
There is a huge amount of playfulness and creativity in what people do with language and societies probably benefit from having a mix of people, some keen to push the boundaries and do new things and some concerned about maintaining a degree of consistency and order.
I think it is important to remember that in face to face conversation polite or courteous people will adjust the way they speak to move closer to the speech of others. This can involve non verbal aspects of communication such as use of hand gestures and 'personal space' as well as accent, dialect and register. We subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) notice the extent to which people do this and this becomes part of what we know about the kind of person they are. A person who steadfastly insists on 'maintaining standards' and refuses to adapt to others is seen as a prig or a pedant and sees others as lazy or sloppy.
When people address crowds they face the same problems (even when the crowds are self-selecting, like supporters at a political rally) and some participants may feel patronised or talked over while others feel the speaker was on their wavelength.
When we write, particularly when we write to/for people we have not met, it may be more difficult to make courteous adjustments and this is where conventions are particularly useful. Knowing what may irritate people allows us to choose either to avoid those things or to deploy them effectively. The conventions may be described as 'rules' but that ignores the fact that they are by no means universally agreed, and they change over time.
There is a huge amount of playfulness and creativity in what people do with language and societies probably benefit from having a mix of people, some keen to push the boundaries and do new things and some concerned about maintaining a degree of consistency and order.
. To indicate the extent of the problem, without spell checker, I can spell a work like ‘the’ in two or three different ways in a single sentence. Ask me to read it and they all come out as ‘the’. I just don’t see the problem. The most embarrassing example was at school when the entire class was called over to see my ‘perfect’ technical drawing and asked to spot the mistake. Most of them saw it immediately and had a good laugh. I couldn’t see it until someone pointed out where I had spelt my name wrong in the title block.
