I have several aspects I can put forth to consider:
First, does the question of morality even apply in this situation? Perhaps I could see it in the decision of the Trolley Problem, where it's life or death.
But whether or not to tell someone "you're not your" feels too trivial a problem to involve morality at all - it seems one just does it or doesn't.
Through unfortunate mistakes in life, I've also learned that moral pressure often leads to one's own moral degradation.
"If you don't do this, you are immoral." I was told this about certain things. Obviously, I didn't want to be a bad person. So I took action - or rather, what I thought action was. It didn't matter if I was clueless or uninformed of nuances in the problem; I was obligated.
The counterpoint was - acting is moral. Therefore, I could justify any actions as contributing to that grand scheme. How could I be criticized when my intentions were good? Well, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."
So even if I don't see how it fits, one has to ponder the effects if we're to force morality into this equation. Failing to correct means you're immoral and bad, so I constantly do it as an obligation, perhaps out of fear, and regardless of thought. The core ideas get ignored for pedantic, hardly relevant details.
It was also a slippery slope for me to paint a broad, pessimistic stroke with people to base one's actions. A nebulous opposition group that "they" are out to cause harm, so anything I did was justified as punching back. In reality, I made many problems out of nothing from my assumptions.
In any case, I don't feel it's my duty, nor do I have the desire to "correct" someone or get involved in their life, particularly when it's unwarranted.
I once believed it was, and that's also when my worst behaviors occurred. Because I was unknowledgeable, unaware of nuances, and perhaps even crass, yet felt "obligated" to act anyway and feed my ego.
That being said, I also see grammar and content as equivalent. Poor grammar will inevitably affect how one's ideas are conveyed. However, I also take in context beyond the words, like a person's background - it's not black and white.
I may have subconscious thoughts, but it's not my place to do any correcting. It's my prerogative to seek out what I resonate with - grammared or grammarless. Just as it's no one else's duty to "fix" me.
I don’t know that I agree with the premise. It’s not that people don’t want you correcting grammar because it removes a signal. I think it is more about people who use grammar as a means to attack and discredit a person, rather than the ideas presented. It can be used as an ad-hominem attack.
I think the other part of it, which is not trivial, is the rise of phones. People are typing on little keyboard and auto-correct can have a heavy hand. People don’t want to be judged for auto-correct getting one word wrong, invalidating a legitimate argument, so they look past potential auto-correct mistakes from others. The Internet has become much more tolerant of misspelling and mistakes, for better or worse.
If it’s a clear knowledge gap, then think a correction is helpful and warranted. For example someone saying “mute point” or “per say”. By all means, let them know. Ironically, auto-correct fixed both of those and I had to go out of my way to mess them up again.
I think the issue with correcting grammar online is that it diverts the conversation from the topic of the post. Of course this depends on the context but they might be excited about what they're posting about and seeing replies about their bad grammar or other off-topic things can take away from that.
If you can offer genuine advice privately, then you can but otherwise if you feel it might come off as rude or pedantic, then I would shy away from it.
But that doesn't reflect the same intent that the author had. Whether their grammar is good or bad, at least it's their writing. They expressed themselves in the way they wanted to. I'm sure my grammar is not great either but I'm happy I wrote it myself.
I judge people based on whether they get their point across -- you don't know the age or national origin of the person posting, for all I know I'm speaking to someone much younger than I who speaks more languages than I do.
I do judge spelling errors harshly, since most modern OSes will give a nasty red squiggle.
Anyways "immoral" is such a strong phrasing. Killing someone is immoral.
Letting someone argue their point badly is... well, I was raised Catholic so lets use that lens: Catholicism would refer to it as a "venial sin" -- you won't be going to hell for not correcting someone's grammar on the internet.
You just said online writing should not be judged on grammar. Why then would it follow that there exists some moral imperative to correct it?
For what it is worth, I used to feel the urge to correct but as I have grown wiser in my years I now see many people smarter than me use grammar in ways i do not. Now i see people who correct others grammar and spelling as pedantic jerks.
Perhaps we take a lesson from sources like The One Minute Manager (https://isbn.nu/9780007107926) which is also echoed many other places. Praise in public, and correct in private.
Almost every social media system has some way to contact someone without shaming them in the public thread.
Thanks for this. I often see folks like OP very condescendingly tell people they're not writing "correctly", while forgetting that English is a constantly evolving language -- at a certain point if a "mistake" becomes mainstream, it becomes an acceptable one.
(I'm struggling for more complex examples, but think of how people will say, declare "that's not a word"... well, usage of "not a word"s is how they end up going into the dictionary...)
I have several aspects I can put forth to consider:
First, does the question of morality even apply in this situation? Perhaps I could see it in the decision of the Trolley Problem, where it's life or death.
But whether or not to tell someone "you're not your" feels too trivial a problem to involve morality at all - it seems one just does it or doesn't.
Through unfortunate mistakes in life, I've also learned that moral pressure often leads to one's own moral degradation.
"If you don't do this, you are immoral." I was told this about certain things. Obviously, I didn't want to be a bad person. So I took action - or rather, what I thought action was. It didn't matter if I was clueless or uninformed of nuances in the problem; I was obligated.
The counterpoint was - acting is moral. Therefore, I could justify any actions as contributing to that grand scheme. How could I be criticized when my intentions were good? Well, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."
So even if I don't see how it fits, one has to ponder the effects if we're to force morality into this equation. Failing to correct means you're immoral and bad, so I constantly do it as an obligation, perhaps out of fear, and regardless of thought. The core ideas get ignored for pedantic, hardly relevant details.
It was also a slippery slope for me to paint a broad, pessimistic stroke with people to base one's actions. A nebulous opposition group that "they" are out to cause harm, so anything I did was justified as punching back. In reality, I made many problems out of nothing from my assumptions.
In any case, I don't feel it's my duty, nor do I have the desire to "correct" someone or get involved in their life, particularly when it's unwarranted.
I once believed it was, and that's also when my worst behaviors occurred. Because I was unknowledgeable, unaware of nuances, and perhaps even crass, yet felt "obligated" to act anyway and feed my ego.
That being said, I also see grammar and content as equivalent. Poor grammar will inevitably affect how one's ideas are conveyed. However, I also take in context beyond the words, like a person's background - it's not black and white.
I may have subconscious thoughts, but it's not my place to do any correcting. It's my prerogative to seek out what I resonate with - grammared or grammarless. Just as it's no one else's duty to "fix" me.
Grammar is ever changing and the formal rules are quite arbitrary anyway. Not everyone uses the same grammar worldwide.
I err towards caution and wouldn't dare presume I'm qualified to correct others.
The same is true with Maths.
Actually, we do now have a few tech authorities of the English language.
I don’t know that I agree with the premise. It’s not that people don’t want you correcting grammar because it removes a signal. I think it is more about people who use grammar as a means to attack and discredit a person, rather than the ideas presented. It can be used as an ad-hominem attack.
I think the other part of it, which is not trivial, is the rise of phones. People are typing on little keyboard and auto-correct can have a heavy hand. People don’t want to be judged for auto-correct getting one word wrong, invalidating a legitimate argument, so they look past potential auto-correct mistakes from others. The Internet has become much more tolerant of misspelling and mistakes, for better or worse.
If it’s a clear knowledge gap, then think a correction is helpful and warranted. For example someone saying “mute point” or “per say”. By all means, let them know. Ironically, auto-correct fixed both of those and I had to go out of my way to mess them up again.
I think the issue with correcting grammar online is that it diverts the conversation from the topic of the post. Of course this depends on the context but they might be excited about what they're posting about and seeing replies about their bad grammar or other off-topic things can take away from that.
If you can offer genuine advice privately, then you can but otherwise if you feel it might come off as rude or pedantic, then I would shy away from it.
If only we had a tech solution to this problem...
What's the tech solution? I don't want to assume.
Modern AI of course.
But that doesn't reflect the same intent that the author had. Whether their grammar is good or bad, at least it's their writing. They expressed themselves in the way they wanted to. I'm sure my grammar is not great either but I'm happy I wrote it myself.
I judge people based on whether they get their point across -- you don't know the age or national origin of the person posting, for all I know I'm speaking to someone much younger than I who speaks more languages than I do.
I do judge spelling errors harshly, since most modern OSes will give a nasty red squiggle.
Anyways "immoral" is such a strong phrasing. Killing someone is immoral.
Letting someone argue their point badly is... well, I was raised Catholic so lets use that lens: Catholicism would refer to it as a "venial sin" -- you won't be going to hell for not correcting someone's grammar on the internet.
You just said online writing should not be judged on grammar. Why then would it follow that there exists some moral imperative to correct it?
For what it is worth, I used to feel the urge to correct but as I have grown wiser in my years I now see many people smarter than me use grammar in ways i do not. Now i see people who correct others grammar and spelling as pedantic jerks.
Because most people judge you based on grammar anyway.
Perhaps we take a lesson from sources like The One Minute Manager (https://isbn.nu/9780007107926) which is also echoed many other places. Praise in public, and correct in private.
Almost every social media system has some way to contact someone without shaming them in the public thread.
Actually, the word you're looking for is "unethical", not "immoral".
...and there you have it.
Using incorrect grammar makes me look like a fool. Being corrected helps me look less like a fool in the future.
> That's why they don't want you correcting other people's grammar online — it threatens a signal they rely on.
Who is “they”?
There is no authority over the english language. Your set of grammar rules are certainly different from virtually everyone else.
>People use grammar to judge your education and intelligence all the time.
You really shouldnt judge others; like ever.
>And so it would seem that failing to correct someone else's grammar online is not just unhelpful — it is immoral.
So you're saying correcting someone's grammar is helpful and moral?
Nobody is stopping you from doing this of course. If you believe it is moral to do, then do it.
>There is no authority over the english language.
Thanks for this. I often see folks like OP very condescendingly tell people they're not writing "correctly", while forgetting that English is a constantly evolving language -- at a certain point if a "mistake" becomes mainstream, it becomes an acceptable one.
(I'm struggling for more complex examples, but think of how people will say, declare "that's not a word"... well, usage of "not a word"s is how they end up going into the dictionary...)
Actually, we do now have a few tech authorities of the English language.