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Comment by baddox | Hacker News Reader

I would be interested to know the author's definition of grammar. He seems to be using the common yet vague definition of grammar, something along the lines of "the proper arrangement of words in a phrase or sentence." However, from a critical/academic standpoint I always thought grammar was more general. Wikipedia, m-w, and answers.com all allow for "grammar" encompassing essentially all structural rules of a language, including semantics, syntax, morphology, etc.

Also, I specifically disagree with his number 3. I have never heard or seen "I can do that easy" in formal speech or prose. He seems to be arguing against grammar Nazism, which I can agree with, but that doesn't mean that a perfectly acceptable and understandable sentence may still be ungrammatical. "I can do that easy" is ungrammatical.

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Bear in mind that descriptive grammarians determine what is and is not grammatical based not on abstract principles of grammar, most of which originate in the prescriptive tradition of the 18th and 19th centuries, but on actual recorded use (i.e. in the same way that dictionaries determine the meanings of words).

In other words, if there is a broad tradition of people saying and writing, "I can do that easy", it is de facto grammatically correct to do so.

> if there is a broad tradition of people saying and writing, "I can do that easy"

But is there? It sounds awful to my ears. Does this not just boil down to the distinction between prescriptive vs descriptive camps?

I believe there is in fact a broad tradition of people saying "I be (going to the store)", but I would say that usage of "be" is incorrect. As well with "I'm gonna ..." or even "Ongonna ...". This type of language can certainly be used "correctly" in prose, to add color and flavor, but I would never expect to see it in a proper non-fiction context.

If people say "I can do that easy," they draw out the "easy."

Shoot, even I can do that -- easy!

I completely agree with baddox. It is the incorrect use of the word "easy" when there is a perfectly good word "easily" at hand. "I can do that. Easy." I would accept.

However, this is an interesting point. Good grammar used to be set by those who who were either educated or at the top of society. There were not many recordings of people using bad grammar, by definition.

Now we have a million recordings of "i can haz cheezburger". I fear that the mechanism you describe - actual recorded use - has been opened by the web to all, and good grammar in times to come may be dictated by YouTube comments.

I can see your point, but even the notable works of highly-educated classical writers regarded as producing the best of English literature are rife with the most egregious violations of prescriptive grammar.

The category Grammar is somewhat slippery to define but we can still reasonably exclude some things.

The first "mistake: in the list under discussion is definitely a stylistic problem and not grammar problem - "it goes without saying" is more traditionally known as a "colorless phrase".

Grammar is some combination of rules and usage. "Incorrect grammar" is just generally not applied to phrases that merely detract from one's message. Of course I'm basing my judgment of the meaning of the term 'Grammar' on usage as well.

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