People who cannot distinguish between good and bad language, or who regard the distinction as unimportant, are unlikely to think carefully about anything else.
— B. R. Myers
On a Facebook group dedicated to the prize-winning writer Shelby Foote (a fav of mine), a civil war broke out after I corrected someone who used "hung" to mean "executed." (If a man or woman was executed by hanging, as grammarians know, he or she was "hanged.")
Some group members backed me, but many went apoplectic over my comment, insisting grammar was irrelevant to communicating.
The irony of advocating sloppy grammar in a group dedicated to Shelby Foote escapes them, as, I'm afraid, do most subtleties.
B.R. Myers is right: sloppy grammar signals a sloppy thinker—or at least a poorly read one.
No, sloppy grammar doesn't prohibit communication.
But it does reflect a pitiable sort of poverty.
