Is It Wrong to Correct Someone's Grammar?‏

From Kaylene Armstrong:

Is It Wrong to Correct Someone's Grammar?
by Martha Brockenbrough

You've probably never thought of the movie Speed as a masterpiece of philosophy, but it is. Oh, it is. In addition to preventing the bus from traveling slower than 50 mph, Keanu Reeves' character asks his partner repeatedly, "What would you do?"

This, my friends, is philosophy, or at least an excuse to talk about wisdom, grammar, and the twin angels of ethics and etiquette.

To paraphrase Keanu Reeves, I ask you now, "What would you do if your boss uttered something utterly ungrammatical? Or if she spelled something wrong on an official company project?"

What would you do?
Well, if you were me about ten years ago, and your boss was a scary dragon lady, you might sit quietly in your chair trying not to snicker audibly when you realized she'd written "Woodby Island" when she meant to write "Whidbey Island."

But what would other people do in this situation? Would they have set the boss straight?

To find out, I surveyed the membership of SPOGG, the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, which I founded in 2004. If anyone would correct such a bad misspelling, it would be the foot soldiers of SPOGG, I thought. But I thought wrong.

Dave Russ, who aims to be "The Soup Nazi of copy editors and proofreaders," reported in all capital letters that it is "NEVER EVER" okay to correct a boss's grammar, unless your boss has asked for it and you've been working together for at least 25 years (which sounds to me like an awfully long time to put up with someone who can't write or speak properly and still takes home a bigger paycheck).

Barry Leiba, a technical researcher at IBM and author of the delightful blog "Staring At Empty Pages," said there are "exactly four" situations where it's all right to correct someone's grammar: (1) when you're an English teacher correcting a student, (2) when you're coaching a nonnative speaker who's asked for help, (3) when someone else has asked for coaching, or (4) when someone puts the equivalent of a "kick me" sign on her back.

As he explains it, "We have, at work, an online discussion group called 'Nitpick Forum.' Anyone who posts there is implicitly giving permission to be torn to shreds." 

Remind me not to go there. Likewise, Hilary Davies should probably steer clear. She's a professional proofreader and copy editor who thinks you should not correct anyone's grammar unless you're being paid to do so. And even then, there are caveats. 

"As a student," she said, "I remember vividly struggling to write a thank-you note in Russian for a gift I'd received from my Russian tutor. To my utter mortification and indignation, he returned my carefully crafted note covered in red ink, completely missing the point of the note and focusing instead on what was wrong with the way I'd written it." 

Is silence unethical?
Maybe it's not such a surprise that members of SPOGG recommended silence; that's exactly the route I took. Alas. I have since learned this makes me a bad person--at least when it comes to ethics.

As business guru Alan Weiss, Ph.D., explained, when we let people get away with grammar goofs, we don't have their long-term interests in mind. Weiss, an organization development consultant who's written 25 books, says it's like failing to let someone know he has lettuce stuck between his teeth.

"When people have not done that for me, my reaction is, 'why the hell didn't they tell me?'" he said. (Uh-oh, I'm guilty on that one, too.)

This doesn't mean I should have sprung out of my chair and corrected my boss, who had long, red--and, I suspected--inhumanly sharp fingernails. But, afterward, I could probably have brought it up with her privately and gently (and from a safe distance).

This is called operating in the other person's self-interest, Weiss said. It's not an easy thing to do when you're correcting the grammar of someone who can fire you. But, as Weiss put it, "ethics are not situational."

"It's like being partially illegal or partially pregnant," he said. "There isn't any such thing as partially ethical."

Bad grammar: Destroyer of civilization?
Ethical people live their lives by saying, "What's the right thing to do here?" he explained. One way of answering that question is following something called the Kantean categorical imperative, after the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

That imperative asks, "What if everyone did it?" (It poses the hypothetical in fancier language, though: "Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a general natural law.")

What if everyone did let everyone else get away with sloppy grammar? Weiss, who is not (yet) a member of SPOGG, believes it would be a terrible thing--the end of the world as we know it, more or less.

"As standards decline, civilization declines," he said. American society is the most successful in history, he said, but complacency could cause all that to crumble. "You fight that by upholding standards," he said. 

But it's not just about the standards; it's about being able to communicate clearly. You can't do that without correct grammar, punctuation and spelling. As Jeff Rubin, the founder of National Punctuation Day has noted, "Let's eat, mommy" does not mean the same thing as "Let's eat mommy."

And if you point out a language error in the right way, no one has to get hurt, humiliated, fired or devoured.

Weiss has seen that personally.

Recently, the chairman of a board meeting he attended kept trying to give a compliment by saying, "KuhDOZZ," Weiss said, when what he really meant was kudos (hear it pronounced). Weiss kept quiet, but afterward, praised the chairman for a good meeting, and as an aside said, "that word is pronounced kudos. I just wanted to tell you this in the event you use it again."

"He thanked me," Weiss said. 

It's likely that part of the board chairman's gratitude was because Weiss didn't call out the error in public.

Part II: But What about etiquette?
And this brings us to the etiquette portion of our discussion. If a code of ethics is a guide to what is right and what is wrong, then etiquette is all about doing the right thing the right way.

If one wants to correct "correctly," then one must do it in private, according to the etiquette experts I consulted: Laurie McIntosh of Business Training Works, and Joy Weaver, author of Just Ask Joy. . . How to be Socially Savvy in All Situations. 

Neither agreed with Weiss, though, on the necessity of upholding grammatical standards all of the time. And while I'd pay good money to see an Ethics and Etiquette Smackdown on Pay-Per-View (napkins would take a beating!), I'm not all that surprised by the disagreement.

After all, both etiquette rules and ethical standards have changed over time.

Let's consider just ethics. What has been called "good" has varied over the years. A Hedonist*, for example, would view pleasure as the highest good. Unless correcting someone’s grammar gave you an enduring or intense pleasure, it wouldn't be the highest good you could pursue according to this ethical system.

So if ethical standards have changed over the years, why should ethicists and etiquette experts--who look at different types of "right"--agree on everything today?

Let's assume, though, we're going to be Alan Weiss-ethical and correct the grammar of others. There’s one really good rule to start with, offered up by Laurie McIntosh, the business trainer: Make sure you're right. 

When to correct grammar mistakes
Some of those rules pounded into our heads by well-meaning English teachers aren't right. For example, it's fine to end sentences in prepositions, just like it's fine to split infinitives. Incomplete sentences? Fine and dandy (even if they're not recommended for business correspondence).

Between you and "I," though? That's as wrong as orange juice and toothpaste--and may that always be the case.

Once you are certain you're correct, you could follow Joy Weaver's five rules for pointing out grammatical peccadilloes:

1. Do it if you're being paid to do it.
2. Do it if someone has asked you to do it.
3. Do it privately.
4. Do it to spare a friend who is about to appear in the spotlight for some reason.
5. Make sure you don't talk down to someone while you're correcting their grammar.

McIntosh has other suggestions, as well. "Know your audience," she says. Parents, for example, should correct their kids' grammar. 

"To do less is a disservice to the child and the rest of mankind," she said.

Students are fair game because they're "in learning mode," she said, though if they're older students, they deserve private instruction on the finer points of language. And finally, she said, "Humor is usually a great tool for getting the point across without making the other person feel like a clod."

On that, I couldn't agree more.

Now, when my boss makes a grammatical error in public, which is a cause for great embarrassment considering her line of work, I just look at her and laugh, and say, "Next time, don't load up on coffee and write."

"You should talk," she invariably replies, a wee bit grumpily. "Also, you have lettuce in your teeth."

And then I look around to see if anyone has overheard me talking to myself.

I am, after all, one of those self-employed writers who operate out of a spare bedroom and therefore have no good reason to shower regularly. As my own boss, I am forced to correct my errors on a daily basis. It's mortifying, of course, but I always take care to do it in private--if only so no one thinks I'm losing my marbles.