When does poor grammar become evolving language?
In: 1546
When there’s general acceptance that the “poor grammar” isn’t actually bad or incorrect. If a grammatical construction mostly gets confused stares or offers of correction, then it’s not (yet) language. If people seem to actually understand the speaker’s meaning and don’t perceive the grammar as “wrong,” then it’s just language.
For example, you likely didn’t bat an eye at the non-sentence or split infinitive I inserted into the above paragraph. Even though some pedants will/would say these are bad grammar, English speakers have largely come down against them. We’re all an active part of those debates. By all means correct people if you disagree with their English, but only do it if you think there’s some problem with clarity rather than just a deviation from “how it’s done.”
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