
Are you a grammar pedant? This might be why - nkurz
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/29/grammar-pedant-personality-type
======
nerdy
But what does this tell us about introverts? Is the "pebble in the shoe" of an
introvert an annoyance with the perceived carelessness on the part of the
grammatical offender? Or maybe a lack of respect? Is introversion the cause,
or a sibling to pedantry of a broader psychological trait?

I hated English classes in school, never paid attention. Skipped. Failed. It
seemed inconsequential at the time. Gaining access to a BBS was a bit of a
culture shock. Computers were fascinating but suddenly my peers cared about
spelling, grammar... even punctuation (it happened to be a BBS for a local
paper, maybe related). So at 15, I felt out of place and committed to
thoroughly learning all of the things I'd skipped in school. Not because of
snarky responses, corrections, or others’ expectations but because it impacted
my ability to communicate - which I don't particularly enjoy but feel is
important. Even now, I'm communicating... but it isn't for the sake of making
noise or banging on a keyboard, it's about an idea. We communicate to share
thoughts and without that mechanism we wouldn't have shared learning which
resulted in anything commonly considered "technology" or "machines" today.

My visceral reaction to grammatical errors is the feeling that the person
places less of a value on communicating ideas. It isn't about intelligence,
it's about values.

Does anyone else feel this way? Am I just a pedantic, judgmental asshole?

~~~
ryanmonroe
>My visceral reaction to grammatical errors is the feeling that the person
places less of a value on communicating ideas. It isn't about intelligence,
it's about values.

I don't see what the usual "grammar pedant" complaints have to do with valuing
communication. I typically see people complain about things like using "there"
instead of "their", "its" instead of "it's", "affect" instead of "effect". As
a rule, none of these things have any impact on the ability of a reader to
understand the writer's intended message. I realize that in some rare cases
these mistakes create ambiguity, but that's never the grammar pedant's
complaint.

~~~
Udik
I agree with you. I am seriously annoyed by the kind of mistakes you've
listed, and it has nothing to do with the message being understandable or not.
Instead, it means to me that the writer (often a native English speaker) has
never bothered to master even the most basic rules of his own language, which
in turn suggests a pretty poor education, at least as far as reading and
writing skills go. Also, since he has never noticed his mistakes, he's either
poorly literate, or displays a remarkable lack of curiosity and observation
abilities.

On the other hand, I'm Italian. I came to understand, after a few years living
in an English speaking country, that the emphasis Italians put on writing
correctly (as well as on many other things - e.g. eating well, dressing
decently, avoiding public drunkenness) has no correspondence in the English
speaking world.

Did I annoy you enough? :)

~~~
mwhite
English-speaking countries are not all alike. The level of non-English
speaking immigration to a country (which happens in all English-speaking
countries, but to a much greater degree in some than others) has a large
impact on the ability to maintain high standards for the language.

As I'm sure you know, English spelling is also much less phonetically obvious
than Italian (and I would not be surprised to learn that English is slightly
grammatically more complicated than Italian, although frankly, as far as I'm
concerned, any language with grammatical gender wins for difficulty), so
emphasizing correct writing might be slightly harder.

~~~
Udik
I don't think it's a matter of immigration, I am living in a country with a
relatively recent immigration and a lot of natives are making horrendous
mistakes (usual suspects: "there" for "their", "who's" for "whose",
"definatly" for "definitely", etc.).

You second point is absolutely correct: English spelling is a nightmare
_especially_ if you don't have any alternative phonetic system in which to
represent it. My Italian wiring makes "there" and "their" two completely
different words (they would be pronounced differently if read phonetically in
Italian: "ther-a" and "the-eer") - English speakers don't have the luxury of a
discriminating phonetical representation. By the way, this whole thread is
about "grammar pedants" \- but in fact we're just talking about spelling. The
construction of the sentences is very rarely wrong.

------
makecheck
No, it reflects how much tolerance you have for laziness.

The point of grammar is to be understood. Good grammar shows that the writer
is trying to help the reader. Poor grammar shows that the writer doesn’t care,
and the reader is forced to figure everything out.

Arguably, mistakes that don’t affect understanding can be overlooked without
any comment. For example, some words are pretty unique; you can seriously
misspell them and still recognize them. On the other hand, you have to be
careful with changes to words or even punctuation that can drastically alter
the meaning of a sentence.

I can also forgive things that are frankly inconsistent in the language. For
instance, although I know when to use "its" versus "it’s", I certainly _get_
why someone would think that "it’s" may be correct for possession; and, since
it is very unlikely that "it is" will make any sense as a replacement, I can
also figure out what was intended every time. No big deal.

------
lazyjones
The correlation seems to exist, but implying causation is a bit of a stretch.

I'm definitely introverted and annoyed by typos and grammar mistakes I can
identify (despite making some myself with English being my 3rd language), but
I also consider them harmful and contagious: e.g. the possessive "its" is
written more often as "it's" than not these days, especially in tech articles
and blog entries posted on HN. Therefore it's not really an emotional, knee-
jerk reaction, but conscious pedantry and anger because of the harm done to
readers through neglect.

Here's another theory (well, hypothesis...): extroverted people frequently
have a good memory (names, faces, birthdays...) and can tolerate sloppy
writing by others because it doesn't affect their own, while those who - like
me - need to refresh their memories regularly and possibly rely more on
reading for language skills, might find typos and grammar mistakes more
harmful.

------
gone35
Note the original study[1] is awfully underpowered; the reported effect is
weak and highly equivocal; and it reeks of 'researcher degrees of freedom'
bias --so _caveat lector_. (It's PLOS One, after all.)

[1]
[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0149885)

------
upstandingdude
"extrAvert"? FUCK! Are you toying with me? I don't care if its a legit
variant, it feels wrong. Made me rage more than it should have.

~~~
nkurz
Where do you think you fall on the introvert-extrovert scale? More than a
variant, "extravert" is actually the original spelling that Jung used, which
he chose because "extra" is a legitimate Latin prefix, while "extro" is not:
[http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-
diff...](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-difference-
between-extraversion-and-extroversion/)

I'm pretty far on the introverted side, and would prefer spelling it
"extraverted" although I'm aware that this is nonstandard in the US. I think
this is because I tend to be more attentive to the rules of orthography than
to common usage. I'd guess that extroverts tend to care more about social
norms than while introverts are more comfortable with consistent rules?

------
xorcist
I'd be more interested in research on grammar tolerants, rather than
intolerants. Are their reading fluency not hampered by language hickups? Do
they not read as fluent, or at least in the same way, as those more easily
bothered?

~~~
Gibbon1
I'm fairly tolerant of bad/odd grammar. ?usually when reading something with
crummy grammar all I feel is impression of sloppiness.

------
mike_hock
Well, an _excessive_ amount of spelling errors on the application could be an
indication that they half-ass everything.

Which could be a problem in a housemate.

Or it could mean they won't give _you_ shit for half-assing everything.

Depends.

------
Rizz
Is a grammar pendant also more intolerant of petty crimes? I could see
language errors as a sort of crime against the rules we as a society made.

~~~
gbsmith
"pendant" != "pedant".

Now that I've identified myself as a _spelling_ pedant, the answer is: Not in
general.

Judging by the people I've met in life (yes, selection bias ...) there is no
correlation.

[Disclaimer: This post is bound to contain grammatical errors. I'm not a
native English speaker.]

------
bottled_poe
In a social or informal context, most could not care less about linguistic
correctness. On the other hand, in a professional context, presentation is
highly relevant. The specific details of sentence structure are not important,
the point is that it generally indicates a persons attention to detail and
ability to communicate effectively.

~~~
plainOldText
Someone who communicates effectively is definitely paying attention to
sentence structure.

One's writing can be regarded as a manifestation of one's model of the world.
Writing riddled with grammatical errors, incorrect sentence structures and
incomplete punctuation indicate an overly simplistic model.

A more detailed model yields more predictive power, at the expense of extra
brain cycles. If one cannot differentiate between "your" and "you're" I'm
pretty sure that person is running a slower "CPU".

------
Uhhrrr
I'm a grammar pedant because I like to help people who write "must of" and
confuse it's and its.

~~~
humanrebar
I'm in the same boat. I find it a sign of care and respect that we try to help
each other become better. Who cares more, the person who lets you know you
have something green between your teeth or the person who pretends it's not
there?

Do I always politely point out embarrassing details to my friends? Nope. I'm
actually most likely to point them out to my friends who appreciate (or at
least can handle) that sort of constructive criticism. In this way, honest
feedback from me is a sign of respect. Meaning, to some degree, if I feel I
have to keep things from you to protect your feelings, I don't believe my
communication skills and your emotional intelligence allow for that sort of
exchange. That is, I'm too much of a jerk and you're too sensitive for me to
point out that your have bad breath.

Does having food between your teeth matter? Not ultimately. But saving people
from quiet judgment from others matters, surely.

------
djaychela
They spelled extrovert wrong. Deliberately?

~~~
Jenya_
The spelling with A belongs to Jung himself:
[http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-
diff...](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-difference-
between-extraversion-and-extroversion/)

~~~
djaychela
Interesting...(thanks for the link) But I would have expected them to be
consistent within the article? It's done both ways in there.

~~~
desdiv
It is consistent. The word appears six times in total, and the 5 times the
author used it were all consistent:

>extraversion

>extraverts

>Quoting Hans Eysenck: extroverts

>extraverts

>extraverts

>extraversion

You're not supposed to correct someone's different spelling when quoting them.

------
falcrist
It strikes me as strange that the article doesn't discuss context at all. For
example, if you're commenting on a website or texting me, I'm unlikely to care
about grammatical errors. However, if you can't be reasonably close to correct
on a website that's selling something, I will be much less like to buy from
you.

------
lowmagnet
I consider myself both an introvert and a somewhat-reformed grammar pedant. I
tend to only call out mis-spellings and grammar mistakes when they matter.

I also prefer writing my own words in an e-prime fashion, eschewing forms of
to be. It helps me eliminate most of my use of passive voice and also helps me
make less judgemental statements, tying agency to my verbs.

------
bane
Perhaps.

Grammar pedants (prescriptivists), seem to be made up mostly of people who've
come to the conclusion that the particular mode of the language they're most
comfortable with is _the_ "correct" one that everybody should be communicating
in. It seems to come from some deep-down inflexibility to tolerate or
comprehend that other people communicate in different modes. The pedant seems
to wish that all the world should structure their communication to be most
convenient for them rather than trying to work on increasing the scope of the
modes they can work with. They believe there is one kind of audience and their
preferred mode is the magical key that ensures correct and precise
communication with that audience -- regardless if this is actually true.

It makes a kind of sense that this might stem from some deep seated
introversion -- people for whom the principal interaction between audience and
speaker is themselves. But on the other hand, wouldn't you likely be able to
understand any mode of communication within your own mind?

What's most often fascinating to me is how deeply wrong and ignorant of
grammar most grammar pedants are beyond some superficially memorized rules
they've attached themselves to. When pushed for the "why" behind their rules
they frequently don't know, or will point to some style manual (usually also
full of grammar errors) they believe has taken on an almost holy quality.

One of my favorite tactics is the "that's not a word" argument, with fingers
pointed to the nearest dictionary as evidence. This of course ignores the
simple fact that dictionaries are comprised of words that grammar
_descriptivists_ have observed in the wild -- with usage reaching above some
non-transient threshold that makes it worth capturing by lexicographers.

The worst linguists are those that fall very far on the descriptive side of
the spectrum.

Some references:
[http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/correct/prescriptivism/](http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/correct/prescriptivism/)

 _So what is right and wrong in language, and who decides? Some observers
claim that the real issue about linguistic right and wrong is one of deciding
who wields power and who doesn 't. Viewing language as a form of cultural
capital, they note that stigmatized forms are typically those used by social
groups other than the educated middle classes--professional people, including
those in law, medicine, and publishing. Linguists generally would argue that
the language of educated middle-class speakers is not better (or worse) than
the language of other social groups, any more than Spanish, say, is better or
worse than French, Navaho better or worse than Comanche, or Japanese better or
worse than Chinese. They would acknowledge that some standardization of form
is useful for the variety of a language used, especially in print. They would
also insist, however, that expressions appearing in dictionaries and grammars
are not the only grammatical forms and may not be suitable for use in all
circumstances. They are merely the ones designated for use in circumstances of
wider communication._

[http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003588.h...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003588.html)

 _Perhaps the worst thing about prescriptivism is that it is frequently a
device for demonstrating the superiority of the pundit and his or her favorite
class of people over everyone else. It feeds discrimination, particularly
classism. The standards to which pundits appeal are invariably those of a
socioeconomic elite. The standard tends to combine their natural speech with
details that one can only acquire by means of extensive education._

[http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97mar/halpern/nu...](http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97mar/halpern/nunberg.htm)

 _...These bare instructions give no reason at all for choosing the singular
pronoun. In fact, there is no mention of an error in the use of the plural,
which is labeled not "incorrect" or "illogical" but merely "formal," as if the
difference between plural and singular were on a level with the difference
between _cop* and _policeman_ , or _horse_ and _steed_.

...But the Handbook says only that the sentence is "illogical," giving no
indication of what point of logic is violated. What is the student to make of
that, especially since the Handbook has not explained the use of the singular
as being "logical" in the first place? The student who finds "6b(1)" cropping
up on his compositions may learn to rectify the error, but only in the way he
learns to rectify his misspellings: by rote, learning nothing else in the
process. _

~~~
aninhumer
I feel like there's a difference between the extremes of misguided
prescriptivism and pedantry about basic grammar rules.

But I'm not sure I can say much to justify that without essentially suggesting
that everyone should learn the language of intellectuals for their benefit
(i.e. so we don't stumble over incorrect there/their/they're).

~~~
bane
It's a spectrum of course. There's some things that are clearly not correct
for a given mode of a language.

What's interesting of course about issues like there/their/they're is in all
likelihood, at some point in the future, the orthography will simply converge
and we'll just use context to tell the difference. After all, there's plenty
of words with the same orthography and different meanings.

Languages tend towards simplicity and the kind of tension unnecessary
orthographic differences make is exactly the kind that languages evolve away
from.

------
cheshire137
Did the author intentionally repeatedly misspell "extrovert" just to mess with
us?

~~~
jeremysmyth
Did you intentionally throw in "extrovert" just to mess with us?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraversion_and_introversion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraversion_and_introversion)

------
mattmanser
_In an experiment involving 80 Americans_

Seriously? 80 people gave them all these insights?

There's something fundamentally wrong with research if they think that's ok to
publish.

I got more than 80 questionnaires back for my high school geography project.

~~~
Retra
How many spoonfuls of soup must you taste to know if the pot is salty?

~~~
mattmanser
A soup is binary salty/not salty.

5 characteristics measured - _openness, conscientiousness, extraversion,
agreeableness and neuroticism_

5! = 120.

So are you arguing 2 === 120 or are you arguing 2 === 5, but whichever one it
is, you're missing the point.

Do you know why adverts have 'when 80 women were asked 73% agreed pantene
makes my hair shinier'? Because it's not scientifically significant, so can't
be held as a clinical trial, therefore the product doesn't need regulating.

And that's for a binary, shiny/not shiny (salty/not salty). Not for a possibly
open, sloppy, introverted, agreeable neurotic. Or a closed, conscientious,
introverted, agreeable non-neurotic.

~~~
Retra
A soup can be sweet, sour, tangy, meaty, bitter, in addition to plenty of
other characteristics.

>So are you arguing 2 === 120 or are you arguing 2 === 5, but whichever one it
is, you're missing the point.

It's pretty clear that I'm not arguing either of those (being that I made no
mention of cardinality,) but if you want to put words into my mouth, I can see
why you'd think I'd be focusing on those kinds of irrelevant details.

My _point_ is that the number of samples taken, _in and of itself_ doesn't
tell you anything about the significance of a conclusion. You need to know how
the sample relates to the population, and how the results characterize the
population through the sample.

