Populism Always Wins

A big list of Non-Errors in English grammar and usage. Things that some people think are important, but really? Not so much.

Fresh out of college, I was an editor for a start-up children's magazine that you've never heard of and doesn't still exist. We were at a trade show or something, and a large-ish promotional piece said something about "raising children." I had written those words, since I was the staff copywriter. (I was the staff everythingwriter.)

During a lull, a smugly smarmy gentleman selling children's dictionaries crossed the aisle to inform me that the proper phrase was "rearing children."

"Yeah, but nobody talks that way," I said. It's a legitimate rebuttal, but secretly I felt chastised.

The pang of that public shame combined with my fondness for the mongrel nature of English has led me, as a professional, to loathe language snobbery.

I tend to practice the "correct" version of many of these non-errors even though I'm usually the only person in the room who knows or cares what they are. But if someone bundled them into a sack and dropped them down a well, I'd hold the bucket out of the way.