Why I stopped caring about grammar (and maybe you should too)

I used to be a proud member of the grammar police.

I thrived in the role.

I’d tut at misplaced apostrophes, roll my eyes when someone capitalised spring, summer, autumn or winter and groan at “every day” being used as one word when it should be two. I’d tell shop owners their signs were wrong, judge people who wrote “your” instead of “you’re” and generally quite enjoy spotting mistakes and correcting them.

Maybe you’re the same.

Or maybe you’ve been on the receiving end of a grammar police attack and not really enjoyed it.

I’ve been there too. When a typo was made in a tweet I sent in a rush, someone responded to point out my error. I’ve published mistakes in my articles that slipped through the proofread and received emails of complaint.

But here’s the thing. Whenever a genuine mistake or a grammar rule I didn’t know (of which there are many) was pointed out to me, I never thought well of the messenger.

I know they were just trying to help. But there’s something low energy about it. Something about the superiority of pointing out mistakes on someone’s work that just didn’t sit right.

I don’t want to have that effect on other people, so I stopped caring about their grammar. Here’s why you might want to join me.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to use the right grammar

I write books and articles, including for Forbes. I have strict style guidelines to follow. I work with?a brilliant editor?for my books. Of course, I want to use the right syntax, the correct tense and proper punctuation marks. But I’m not going to lose sleep about making mistakes or not knowing a rule.

Hitting publish on something you’ve poured your heart into is daunting enough without fear of ridicule. So let’s stop fearing the ridicule. Bring it on.

What others do is not my problem

One of my favourite books is The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. The book introduces the concept of the separation of tasks, which states that we should think solely about our own tasks and be unconcerned of the tasks of other people. My tasks: my writing, my spelling, my grammar. Other people’s tasks: their writing, their spelling, their grammar.

Trying to change other people is madness and only leads to frustration. Leaving others to their own tasks and opting out of judging or reacting means peace and happiness.

People are afraid of showing up

There are countless would-be artists who are too afraid of critics to show up. They stay hidden and don’t put their work out there for fear of what people might think or say. Writers make up a big proportion of this group. They worry their words will be scrutinized and picked apart and they are scared of criticism or bad reviews. Afraid to make errors, they keep their work unpublished.

The result? Hidden works of art. Hidden talent. People who will never discover what they are capable of. I don’t want to play any part in that happening and I hope you don’t either.

Language evolves

Words and phrases have been evolving since humans learned how to communicate through talking, and there’s no slowing down.

Many of the words we say now will seem archaic in the future, and we don’t know which ones. For centuries, snooty people have been complaining about foreign or new words entering the dictionary, including words such as “balcony”, “incentivize” and “desirability,” which seems ridiculous now. Humans make the dictionaries based on what people are actually saying. The rules are moot.

Grammar evolves just like words do. If no one really knows how to use apostrophes, perhaps in the future they won’t exist. If so, there’s no point stressing out over them now.

It’s low energy

Thinking about how other people are capitalising common nouns (urgh) and ending sentences on prepositions is taking the place of other, more productive thoughts.

When children read books, they are happy. They don’t know the rules, they just follow the story and enjoy it. I used to scroll Twitter and feel unhappy. “Why is everyone using title case?” I’d silently scream. I’d unfollow people. I’d get annoyed by their idiocy and ignore their words, even when their message was worthwhile.

The truth is, letting yourself be bothered by grammar is a low energy activity along with complaining, gossiping and watching the news. Fear, judgment and superiority hold no useful benefits. If anything, focusing on what someone else is doing puts undue onus on commentary. But not everything is there to comment on.

Low energy: caring about grammar. High energy: letting it slide. If I know what you meant, that’s good enough. I stopped caring about grammar and have been generally happier ever since. I’ll apply my standards to my own work, but how anyone else chooses to write or show up is up to them.

Let’s cut each other some slack and focus on the message at hand not the punctuation marks that supplement it.