I see two stories when I compare Kyle Weins’ statement on grammar and Carmen Bugan’s statement on immigrant minds. They come together to highlight the elitism in English.
Weins’ statement, to be blunt, is bratty and privileged. I do get what his point is. It is true that some level of understandable grammar is usually needed to make a point. However, what he’s doing is showing a massive preference for the raw mechanics of English. What’s most notable about his work is that he says nothing of clarity. He opens on the minor misuses of punctuation. “If you think an apostrophe was one of the 12 disciples of Jesus, you will never work for me,” he begins. One of the snarkiest openings I’ve laid eyes on.
He states that people who do better on grammar tests are better at tasks such as stocking shelves. The creativity of the human mind need not apply to menial tasks. He states that people who pay attention to these things are better coders. Lest we forget that human beings are less picky about typos than your computer.
And then there’s Bugan.
Written in the midst of the Trump administration, Bugan’s blog post emphasizes meaningful thought over raw mechanics. “Let us write shimmering, nuanced, beautiful words, poems and stories full of love,” she writes. There’s hardly a concern over what sentences need how many commas. Just write. Write the best and most powerful stuff you can. Or even just something that might not make waves, but you think is neat. You do you.
Bugan also states that the English language “suffers from materialism, from empty slogans, and it has been reduced to buzzwords.” I would also add that it suffers from thought processes such as Weins’. Invalidating someone’s work because it doesn’t follow standard academic English to the tee? That’s flat-out elitism. Depending on the context, it goes deeper and even worse than that.
We have a problem with elitism in English, and we can lighten up (in a sense) by listening to people like Carmen Bugan.
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