Language is a tool we use to make ourselves understood, and I would guess that, even using the wrong word, that person succeeded; just like the wrong fork transports the food to your mouth just fine.

In a perfect world, both participants in any conversation, be it at a bank or at a bodega, would go out of their way to understand the people they interact with. That this is not the case now highlights how language is a form of privilege, those with the privilege expect those without to do all of the heavy lifting that goes into making the conversation progress. That probably won’t change, but we should recognize that it happens, dontcha think?

ironic, when the situation at hand is in now way ironic

literally, as in “It’s literally raining cats and dogs.”

@BlueBears and BeckySharper and others, I also struggle with the BF/partner situation. I find when dealing with insurance, etc. I refer to him as “partner.” And when talking to people I always just use his name, because it sounds less juvenile than “boyfriend.” Of course, this irritates some people too, so there is not much win.

However my objection is to the idea (not outlined by any of you I hasten to add but certainly increasingly allowed in certain schools) that text speak is a valid way to express yourself in the context of a school essay or that it doesn’t matter if you can’t spell as long as you are ‘expressing yourself’. I don’t think that’s true. I think that in the context of your school education learning the basics of grammar and spelling is important even you do not have to express yourself in them in later life. I just don’t believe that self-expression is everything and I think we do people a disservice if we say that they don’t have to know the correct meaning of words and that whether or not they like a book is more important than analysing the author (this is a different point though so sorry for going off track).

As a sidenote, I object strongly to management speak and excessive legalese because it is ugly and unnecessary, but I accept that not every one has to agree with this opinion.

Not to be nitpicky (even though that’s kind of what this post is all about) but what you’re saying doesn’t make much sense from a linguistic standpoint.

You “don’t believe the upper-class white male standard of speech is “correct,” but DO believe that “there are proper ways to use words and improper ways to use words”? In the U.S. upper-class people, men and women both, are the ones that decide what is and is not proper in terms of language (and, if you’ll recall, proper is a synonym of correct), so it would logically follow that you believe that their dialect IS the “right” one.

If that’s not what you intended, what are you trying to say? That Standard American English (which is the dialect taught in schools and what most commenters seem to be advocating/typing in) is only slightly more correct than other ways of speaking? That’s a very dangerous line of thought, in my opinion. Setting up hierarchies doesn’t usually get us anywhere positive as a society.

Granted, there are academic and journalistic standards when it comes to things written specifically for those contexts that are not likely to change anytime soon, but what does it matter if people don’t follow the current prescribed language rules at all other times? My grandma is from a generation that never uses ‘text’ as a verb. I’m not. Does that mean her/their English is purer/better/more correct than mine?

Sorry for the spiel. I guess I should’ve just said that I agree with Pilgrim Soul and bellacoker.

As for obscure words, saying we should limit our vocabularies because not everyone understands the words we use is like saying that we should only have vanilla ice cream for dessert because some people don’t know what creme brulee is. Long and/or obscure words are the dessert of language!