20090406

Grammar: It may save your life

People on the internet scoff at those of us who hold ourselves to a higher standard. Spelling? Punctuation? What are they? Quality control is a lie designed to arbitrarily block your insightful and important thoughts from leaving your head the moment they are formed.

What these grammar skeptics do not realize is that their laziness may cost them their lives. Don't believe me? Just take a look at the Bible!

Judges 12:6
...they said, "All right, say 'Shibboleth.' " He said, "Sibboleth," because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.


As you can see, one man's failing resulted in forty-two thousand deaths. This isn't a "God kills a kitten" scenario, this is a "God kills you, your family, your friends, their friends, that chick or hunk who was totally into you, and everyone's pets" scenario.

I estimate it will only take 2 million grammar lazy people to wipe out the earth's entire population. Please, think of the humans.

2 comments:

Phyvo said...

This actually has nothing to do with grammar, rather, it has everything to do with pronunciation and regional accents. Just as the Japanese cannot possibly say "l" because they cannot differentiate it from our "r", these Ephraimites were singled out by their own regional accent which could easily be revealed. They didn't know how to speak any other way.

It's also different from matters today because today people have a much greater ability to learn the prestige accent (now the midwestern accent) due to increased mobility and communication. People in those days were mostly peasants. Even today, there are some towns in England in which people don't move around much and as a result you can tell what town someone is from by how he speaks.

Matoushin said...

Oh sure, way to rain on my parade.

I posted this knowing full well that it was more a matter of accents than actual grammar. Still, you had to be technical and ruin my fun.

Bah! Humbuggery!