When grammar becomes a weapon, it stops being education and starts being exclusion.
The Traditional Rule:
Proper English is a mark of intelligence, discipline, and refinement. Those who fail to use it are lazy, uneducated, or uncultured. Good grammar equals good character.
Why It’s Broken:
Because this entire premise is one giant lie wrapped in a blazer and smugness.
What we call "proper" English is often nothing more than the language of the upper class, preserved in amber by academics, institutions, and standardized testing systems. Meanwhile, dialects, accents, and global variants are labeled “incorrect” — even when they follow rigorous internal logic.
The weaponization of language as a class filter is among the most insidious social engineering projects in history. If you speak “wrong,” you don’t just risk a red pen — you risk being dismissed, mocked, denied opportunity, or made to feel small.
Absurdities and Contradictions:
“Ain’t” is “uneducated” — unless Mark Twain says it. Then it’s literature.
“Y’all” is “low-class” — until politicians start using it to sound relatable.
Double negatives like “I don’t know nothing” exist in dozens of languages, but English punishes them like a crime.
“He be working” in AAVE is a habitual tense — conveying nuance standard English lacks — but it’s treated as broken.
Accent bias: “Received Pronunciation” in the UK opens doors; “Cockney” or “Brummie” closes them.
Real-World Examples:
Job interviews: Candidates with regional or non-standard dialects are often passed over despite qualifications.
Education: Students are told their home language is “bad” English and must be “fixed.”
Publishing and media: “Voice” is celebrated — but only if it’s an upper-middle-class voice with a degree.
Tech algorithms: Grammar-checkers flag informal or regional usage as “errors,” reinforcing bias in software.
British vs. American Variants:
UK often uses accent and class cues to judge intelligence (e.g., “Estuary” English vs. Oxbridge).
US applies prestige to “neutral” media English — but mocks Southern, Black, or immigrant voices.
In both, “standard” is code for “the version used by gatekeepers.”
The Reform Proposal:
Teach grammar as a tool, not a moral compass.
Celebrate dialects and non-standard forms as expressions of culture and innovation.
Remove class-coded penalties from exams, hiring systems, and AI tools.
Normalize multilingual and multi-dialect education.
Encourage content, clarity, and creativity over conformity.
How It Would Work in Practice:
Schools would teach “code-switching” without shaming students’ home language.
CVs and interviews would focus on competence, not accent.
Grammarly-style tools would be reprogrammed to recognize AAVE, Spanglish, and regional forms as valid.
We’d stop saying “speak properly” and start asking “did I understand you?” — because that’s the point.
Final Word: Grammar Should Liberate, Not Dominate.
Language is not a velvet rope to keep the “wrong” people out. It’s a bridge — and bridges don’t need gatekeepers, they need traffic.
This isn’t about destroying English. It’s about freeing it from its own colonizers.
It’s about ensuring no one feels ashamed of how they speak, where they’re from, or the words their grandparents used.
Real reform means more than correcting spelling. It means correcting injustice.
Let’s unshackle the tongue.