Not worried better times: spelling, pronunciation rules and even lexical meaning Many words are not known not only by children and people far from the cultural environment, but also by those who, it would seem, should understand all the subtleties and nuances of the rich Russian language: journalists, philologists and writers. The reasons were the following factors: firstly, this is, undoubtedly, a decline in the general cultural level, and secondly, of course, the Internet, which has taken on the function of a global media outlet. Unlike traditional means mass media, any user can post content on the Internet, that is, there is no pre-selection, so not only meaningless, but also illiterate texts end up on the Internet.
"A ray of light in a dark kingdom?"
Let’s make a reservation: you shouldn’t think that all Internet content is a collection of illiterate nonsense. Professional journalists and writers work on the Internet, cultural and educated people. They are not the only ones worried about the fate of the Russian language: for several years now on the Internet (including on in social networks) movement is active Grammar nazi. Let's talk about it in more detail.
Grammar nazi - what is it?
The phrase "Nazi Grammar" is literally translated from in English as "grammar Nazis". However, the word "Nazis" in in this context should be understood somewhat differently. Under Nazism in this case implies intolerance towards those who often make mistakes in writing certain things language constructs, misplaces punctuation and denies the importance of learning and preserving one’s native language. IN in a broad sense Grammar nazi is a social movement for the purity of language.
Grammar Nazis position themselves as sort of universal cleaners of the Internet environment from illiteracy and philistine stupidity. They placed this burden on themselves, because this social movement has neither a clear organization, nor a charter, nor a program. Moreover, anyone has the right to be called “Grammar Nazi”. In this situation, many literally dishonor the honor of this organization, too aggressively proving that they are right, but at the same time making simple spelling mistakes. Some “inhabitants of the Internet” consider grammar Nazis to be too aggressive and too picky individuals who have nothing to occupy themselves with in real life. Agree, the Nazis and their comparison of themselves with the Nazis and “sacred warriors” are repellent
What do Grammar Nazis do?
Grammar Nazis do not have a clear structure and responsibilities, so everyone who considers himself one simply sits in “public” places on the Internet (popular social networks, forums, online games) and makes comments to everyone about their spelling knowledge, which delivers terrible discomfort for visitors and resource administration. Often, “Nazis” end up with a blocked account as a result of their “heroic” linguistic activities.
Grammar Nazi organization
However, there is more organized groups Nazi grammars, in which responsibilities are clearly divided. Their representatives monitor certain sites, sometimes help the administration of small resources monitor content, and promptly “clean up” frankly crazy comments, that is, they act as editors. This is especially common in Yes, yes, don’t be surprised, Nazi grammar is not a purely Russian “exclusive”: initially the movement was completely international, and then its cells were divided into countries.
It should be noted that they also pay attention not only to spelling: for Grammar nazi, commas do not play a role last role. This position often leads to outright aggression in dialogue, because the placement of commas in the same sentence can be different, and the disputing parties in a heated state cannot understand this.
Nazi Grammar: pros and cons
Since we're talking about something so interesting social movement, then let's look at its pros and cons.
One of the advantages is that, after all, people who consider themselves to be “grammatical Nazis” do not so much know their native language perfectly as they try to preserve its purity and originality. They want people to remember their roots, respect culture and not lose their national identity.
On the other hand, all of the above can be attributed exclusively to the inspirers of the movement and in no way to its ordinary members, who cannot even be fully called members. Usually they simply behave too aggressively, do not take into account the opinions of others at all, and their main goal is some kind of self-affirmation due to this. That's why grammar Nazis are so biased towards Internet users, and because individual representatives the whole movement suffers.
Thanks to our article, we found out who the Grammar Nazis are, what they do and how they convey their ideology to the masses, but whether it is good or evil is up to you to decide.
– What questions did Gramota.ru users ask in the past year? What were you interested in?
– It often happens that questions are related to what is happening around. And this year, of course, too. Yes, there were a lot of standard, ordinary questions about commas, about the inflection of surnames, about the origin of words. But many questions reflected what was happening outside of language. Again there was a peak of questions “to Ukraine or to Ukraine?” This year they added the questions “in the Donbass or in the Donbass?”
Or, for example, how to write the combination “Donetsk People’s Republic” and “Lugansk People’s Republic”? What is the rule for registering them? What are the official names of the states? What are the names of the organizations? Which letters are uppercase and lowercase, are quotation marks needed?
– It seems to me that this question is quite difficult to answer, given that even Russia itself has not officially recognized these entities as states.
– Yes, it’s really very difficult to answer. It would seem that there is similar example– Polish People's Republic. But this official name state that existed in a certain historical period. And all three are needed there capital letters– no one argues with this.
And here, firstly, there is no dictionary fixation. Secondly, it is also unclear from a legal point of view. In addition, it is clear that the choice of spelling will necessarily reflect the native speaker’s attitude towards these phenomena.
One will write each word in capitals, thereby emphasizing that it is independent state. The other will put it in quotation marks. And he will not use any capital letters, and thereby also express his attitude.
– How did you answer this question?
– You mentioned the sacramental question “in Ukraine or in Ukraine.” I noticed that no matter how much you answer it, everyone still continues to swear and argue. Is there any way to answer this so that this debate can come to an end?
- I think it's impossible. We have been constantly answering this question throughout the 15 years of the portal’s existence. And they still keep asking it! We answer that “in Ukraine” is correct, this corresponds to the norms of the Russian language. At the same time, we know very well that on the territory of Ukraine itself the “in Ukraine” option is used in order not to offend anyone.
– At one time it seemed to me that the “in Ukraine” option would win in Russia too...
– There was such a period, but now I noticed the opposite. The media began to emphasize the use of the preposition “on.” It has gained popularity even among those who used to say “in.”
– What else did you ask about that was relevant? Were you interested in Ebola?
- Yes, sure. And there were also a lot of questions about “Ebola-ebOla”, they asked how to pronounce it. IN normative dictionaries this name does not exist (there is a fixation only in the Bolshoi Encyclopedic Dictionary medical terms), so we can only give a recommendation. We advise you to choose the stress on the second syllable - EbOla.
Even at the beginning of the year, there were questions related to sports topics, the names of Olympic disciplines, and the emphasis in the names of athletes.
We ourselves tried to prevent some questions, tried to talk about sports, made such a small project “Olympic Dictionary”, in which we talked about what they are called, where the names come from, how to call an athlete, how to form an adjective. And there very interesting things were revealed. We saw how the emphasis in the words “bobsled” and “skeleton”, for example, changed. These words were borrowed with the emphasis on the first syllable. And then it moved to the last one.
– Are you collecting a collection of funny questions?
We collect questions and requests. Do you know how they call us at the help desk when they ask a question? They don't call us anything! And “dear guardians of letters”, and “respected experts”, “defenders of the great and mighty”, and “our dear saviors”. These are the appeals.
I also really remember a warm question from one of the users, he began unexpectedly: “Hello! How are you doing?" It was touching.
We wrote: “We are doing well, we hope you are too.”
- Concerning current issues: they are asked more by journalists, or are there simple people to whom is it important?
– These are journalists (which is not surprising, because the “Literacy” was, in fact, addressed primarily to journalists when it was created). And ordinary people, those who listen and read journalists, and want to check whether the journalist said the right thing here, whether he wrote correctly, whether he made a mistake.
– Recently there was an idea that we need a special portal for journalists in the Russian language. Is it needed or not? Or does “Gramota” meet these requirements?
– Here I would like to remember an anecdote Soviet era: “Why do we need two general secretaries? Why do we need two portals? “Certificate” was originally created as a reference database specifically for media workers. Then the materials began to expand, and it turned out that the portal’s recipients were all native speakers.
But this initial task continues to be relevant, no one has removed it. And I think that we can simply think about how to make “Literacy” even more attractive to journalists. Maybe in information desk it is necessary to create a separate bureau that will be focused exclusively on the media and will work in a more operational mode, maybe even around the clock. But, of course, this requires separate costs and support from the state.
– Are journalists now completely illiterate, as everyone likes to say? Do you faint when you turn on the radio or TV?
- I'm not falling. And I, for example, have never said that about journalists, and I don’t intend to.
- So you can live?
- Of course, you can live. In general, it seems to me that literacy is being monitored more now, because there are a lot of people who like to prey on illiteracy. The Grammar Nazis live, thrive and multiply. And such phenomena as the secret spelling police (which appeared this year) are only gaining popularity. I don’t remember any very gross blunders recently.
- Well, of course! Recently, a picture was circulating on Facebook: “Hello, school!” This is a picture from a television broadcast.
– It seems to me that it was rather a technical defect. Someone was probably just in a hurry and overlooked it.
And as for the Grammar Nazis who live and reproduce. Still, their activities are useful or not?
– It seems to me that their activities contain little usefulness. Firstly, grammar Nazis are people who are intolerant of the slightest deviations from the language norm. And any intolerance, it seems to me, is bad. Secondly, for grammar nazis, language is divided into black and white, right and wrong. But that doesn't happen in language.
There are so many transitions, so many options: from less desirable to more desirable, this is preferable, this is acceptable, and this is also possible, and this is not very desirable, but in common parlance it doesn’t seem to be scary. And so on.
That is, there is nothing in the language that can be divided. And grammatical Nazism, like any Nazism, it divides into those who are with us and those who are against us.
Besides, what else do Grammar Nazis suffer from? They know some acute cases and have learned several of the most important rules. Well, we learned that "coffee" male. We learned some more tricky accents. But sooner or later they may still find themselves in the place of those whom they are accustomed to denouncing.
But people just don’t like this instability in the language, the presence of options. I want stability and a strong hand.
- It's true. And any answer we give evokes accusations: “If you answer like that, it means you don’t know anything!”
Actually, this has always been the case. I really like the book by Kirill Sergeevich Gorbachevich, our outstanding linguist. The book is called “Word Variation and language norm", it came out in the late 70s. In it, Gorbachevich talks in great detail about why there are variants in a language: stress variants, morphological variants, even spelling variants exist, why this is not an evil of the language, but a blessing. And he writes there that very often linguists are called upon to standardize the language by decree from above, that is, to eliminate any variation.
These calls to linguists have always been and probably always will be. But this simply cannot happen in language, because language is alive, it is always developing. And in order for it to develop, there must be both old and new at some stage of its development. The old has not yet gone away, the new has not yet fully established itself. And this ensures a painless change. This should be in the language, this is the benefit of the language, and not at all evil.
– Are there any norms that you are offended by because no one really knows about them? That is, everyone focuses on standard errors and completely forgets about some other accents, which everyone also does incorrectly.
- Yes, sure. We had a discussion with a presenter at one of the radio stations, and we were talking about the unfortunate verb “to call.” And I asked him: “What do you say – “drills” or “drills”?” He said, “Well, of course, I say “drill!” How could it be different? To which I told him that “drills” is exactly the same mistake as “rings.” And that if he says “drills,” then, in general, he has no moral right to scold those who say “calls.” From a linguistic point of view, these are the same thing.
More about verbs. My favorite verb is “to differ.” What to do? Vary. Everyone says: “These phenomena vary, these options vary.” Although we must say “diversify”. But almost no one knows about this.
And I think that a lot of grammar Nazis would fall for this if you asked them.
– Are a Grammar Nazi and a linguistic freak the same thing?
- Still, no. Linguists are predominantly focused on searching for some secret roots of the Russian language, the secret meanings of Russian words and the desire to trace all this to DNA codes and so on.
We periodically receive letters from language freaks in which they share their recent perfect discoveries, achievements. “You didn’t know, but it turns out that the entire Russian alphabet is a model of DNA!” And then there are calculations, formulas, very serious calculations. I, with my philological mindset, cannot understand this. So I just click on the “Delete this email” button. But the next one won’t take long to arrive – it’s certainly perfect.
We had another citizen who wrote a long question about the need to return to writing the prefix “without-” in all cases, because we allowed demons into the Russian language, and this is the cause of all our troubles.
– Do people even believe this?
I don't know. When Zadornov began his speeches, I thought for a very long time that this was all a joke, a prank, and that everyone understood that this was a joke. But then Russian language teachers started writing to us that children were starting to say in schools that the word “love” is an abbreviation for “people know God.” That is, someone believes in it and someone agrees with it, and this is probably what should be sad.
– How can you tell if you are a linguist?
The main sign is his discussions about the history of language, about sacred codes and secret meanings. I cannot help but quote academician Andrei Anatolyevich Zaliznyak, who devoted many lectures and articles to the fight against amateur linguists. "Where the criterion for serious scientific analysis problem is discarded, in its place motives of a tasteful, emotional and especially ideological order will certainly come to the fore - with all the ensuing social dangers.”
Linguists, who are so fond of talking about the Russian language and its history, are distinguished by precisely this - their pointed disregard for scientific data, increased emotionality(sometimes going beyond the bounds of decency), an appeal to the addressee who shares a certain ideology.
And these people are also characterized by aggressiveness. I once received a call from a very elderly woman who told me that the Russian language was destroyed by representatives of a certain nationality. She spoke very emotionally and belligerently. These are the distinctive features.
– Here the question arises: why is language, which should unite and reconcile everyone, capable of causing such aggression, capable of causing everyone to quarrel?
– This is what worries me most now. It’s not at all like “coffee” will become a neuter noun. I’m not even worried that the emphasis on the verb “rings” will sooner or later shift. What worries me is that our society is now split, disconnected on all, probably, grounds: socially, economically, politically. The only thing we have left in common is language. And what should unite us is increasingly being used precisely for dismemberment, for separation, in order to sow hostility and confusion. The events of this year have once again shown how great the level of verbal aggression. You need to think about this, and not about the type of coffee.
– In general, do words of hatred stay in the language for a long time? Or do they go away quite quickly, and now this wave may subside?
– Some live a very long time. For example, we know derogatory names for nationalities that have been around for many centuries, although the same word “Jew,” for example, used to be quite literary.
But still, they don’t have a very long life. By the way, it’s amazing how some word, which was previously quite normal and neutral, suddenly changes color.
I really like the example that my colleague Yulia Safonova likes to give. She draws attention to a quote from the film “The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath,” which we will all be reviewing now.
There, Ippolit, washing himself in the shower, talks about Zhenya, and says: “They put him on a plane like a chump and sent him to Leningrad instead of Pavlik.”
“They imprisoned me like a lump of wood” - then it sounded completely normal. Chock, dunce, blockhead, loaded like a log. And now the word “chock” has a very specific connotation.
– I know that you are collecting a collection of myths about the Russian language. Has it added any myths this year?
This year it was replenished not with the myths themselves, but with evidence that these myths exist. I think that we will soon have an article about verbs starting with “-sya”. There is a common myth that you can’t say “get out” because it means “clean up yourself.”
And you can’t say “I’m sorry,” because that means “I’m excusing myself.” In fact, neither the verb “get out” nor the verb “apologize” have such meanings. The verb “get out” is simply colloquial, but it is quite acceptable in colloquial speech and does not violate the norm.
And “I’m sorry” is separate Long story. And there will be an article about this on Gramota soon.
Some myths about language from the collection of Vladimir Pakhomov
The Russian language is a million years old, all languages originated from Russian;
The title of the position of President of Russia should always be written with a capital letter;
Nthe form is established by linguists;
Literacy is the ability to write correctly and know the accents;
Zand we pay for bread, and we pay for rent;
WITHThe word “eat” is spoken only by uncultured people;
RRussian is the most difficult language to learn (only Chinese is more difficult);
Lcoming to life is already the norm;
NA person’s nationality can be determined by his last name;
RSpelling form 1917-18 conceived by the Bolsheviks;
Cyril and Methodius invented the Russian alphabet (Russian language);
– Do you think people are capable of going to a rally for the Russian language?
- I think yes. I think that if it is announced that some odious variant will enter the dictionary and with tomorrow It will only be correct to “ring”, I think the rally will take place. At the very least, collecting signatures on the Internet will definitely be addressed to the top officials of the state with a demand to cancel this emphasis.
– Our traditional question. How to reassure people who think the language is dying?
– I usually don’t calm people down. in general terms, A concrete examples. My favorite example is this plural the words "train". Now we won’t use any other option other than “train”. And in a reference book at the beginning of the 20th century one could read: “The illiterate emphasis on “train” instead of the normative and correct “train” is now in general use, but it is completely incorrect, it is not clear on what grounds it is used.” And the subtext was: “Where are we going and what will we end up with if we say “trains”?” But now we say “train”, and the Russian language has not collapsed because of this. And it won’t fall apart from other options, which many now don’t like so much. How not to fall apart from the “trains”.
- That is, we are not rolling somewhere into the abyss, but we are simply rolling along the road and making our way?
- Yes, we are walking along the road and passing this path. But what worries me is that along the way there have become a lot of hateful words. We need to get rid of this. This is the most right now a big problem Russian language.
Let us all wish that there are fewer such words in the new year and that the situations in which they appear become fewer.
Translation of Grammar Nazi is carried out from two languages. On English first the word means “grammar”, and the second word in German is “Nazi”. We are talking about both a well-known Internet meme and an ironic name (and self-name) of one of the communities on the Internet. More details about what Grammar Nazi means will be discussed in the article.
General concept
The Grammar Nazi online community is notable for its approach to literacy issues with extreme pedantry and intolerance. They judge a person only by the level of his language proficiency. And, in particular, about the ability to write correctly.
The Internet project "Urbanculture" speaks of Grammar Nazi as a network being who cares for correct writing words, punctuation marks and for purity native speech generally. Many members of the Internet community perceive this “creature” as a fat troll who provokes controversy and swearing almost everywhere. empty space. It also generates “much noise about nothing.”
On the cynical and humorous website "Lurk" Grammar Nazi are defined as national linguists, grammatical Nazis, linguistic fascists, literate guardsmen. They are spoken of as aggressive literates, possessing innate literacy and a heightened sense of beauty. They get very annoyed when someone makes mistakes - spelling or grammatical. They immediately rush to the attack, waving dictionaries and referring to Gramota.ru.
GN Ruthlessness
The name of the community we are considering goes back to the word “Nazism,” which is an allusion to the ruthlessness of its members. Sometimes Grammar Nazi members use emblems that contain a large latin letter"G" stylized as a flag III Reich. This emblem shows signs of imitation of Nazi symbols, to which law enforcement agencies repeatedly showed their reaction.
Among the Wikipedians there is also Grammar Nazi. They spend a significant part of their time correcting errors in articles. The members of Grammar Nazi are called GN for short, or GN. If an associate of GN makes a mistake himself, especially when he denounces the ignorant, they speak of Grammmar Nazi fail (failure). It must be understood that when GBVs call for the extermination of the illiterate, they do not mean the literal embodiment of the action they call. They either make a stern reprimand or “turn on the ban.”
This is how linguist M.A. Krongauz writes about the most “severe” Grammar Nazis. According to him, the most radical of literacy activists are people who neglect communication interests. They are not engaged in discussing the stated topic, but are analyzing the mistakes the interlocutor made in writing. Their characteristic feature is the desire to correct the interlocutor, and not to communicate with him.
Objective prerequisites
According to a certain part of Internet users, such a phenomenon as Grammar Nazi did not arise out of nowhere. Today it is no secret to anyone that with the spread World Wide Web A huge mass of people poured into it, much of whose literacy leaves much to be desired.
As a consequence, the level at which communication takes place, as they say, does not shine. Both in terms of ethics and literacy. Nevertheless, there is a circle of people who are well educated, highly intelligent, broad-minded, well-read and erudite.
The most natural manifestation of widespread ignorance, disrespect for native language, and sometimes even flaunting such shortcomings, causes some of them to feel indignant. And it’s really “a shame for the state.”
Is there any benefit?
Is there any benefit from members of this community? According to a number of Internet users, it is obvious. By correcting other people's mistakes, they raise the level of Internet literacy. Other users express the opinion that there is nothing wrong with the fact that there are errors in the text. The main thing is that its essence is clear.
To this GN respond that rules in language exist not for the sake of beauty, but precisely so that people understand each other. And if everyone writes as they want, then the result will be not a conveyance of thoughts in writing to the interlocutor, but a “stream of consciousness.”
There is another argument against GBV. Language is not a frozen substance, it develops, so making certain vital adjustments to it, including in the direction of simplification, is quite acceptable. While the Grammar Nazis persist in their conservatism in vain.
In response to this, GN retort: the language within the life of one generation, as well as the rules existing in it, change very little so that this could cause any obvious discrepancies. And all reasoning of this kind is from the evil one.
A huge minus is in the methods
If we consider the idea of GN in a very generalized form, then at first glance everything does not seem to be so bad. The development of a culture of speech, love for the Russian language, cleaning up mistakes - all this can be called commendable.
However, despite good intentions Grammar Nazis, the methods by which they achieve literacy, are sometimes “beyond the bounds”. This is trolling (bullying), insulting other participants, threats against them.
According to M. A. Krongauz, in practice, everything often comes down to painful pokes at everyone who made a mistake. Manifested Grammar Nazi " linguistic arrogance"is very overblown and carries a destructive beginning. Pointing out an error is quite easy, but with design it is much more difficult.
About some incidents
Let us give examples of the attention that was shown by authorities to the phenomenon we are describing.
- In Buryatia, in Ulan-Ude, activist of the Young Guard movement M. Burdukovskaya was fined by the court for publishing the Grammar Nazi emblem on the VKontakte page in 2014. According to the court decision, she violated the ban on Nazi symbols in Russia.
- In 2015, the head of the fund " Total dictation» A. Pavlovsky was summoned to the prosecutor's office of the Oktyabrsky district in Rostov-on-Don on the issue of possible financing of the Grammar Nazi Foundation. This was explained by the fact that the prosecutor's office decided that we're talking about about the pro-Nazi movement.
In order to avoid misunderstandings, in conclusion I would like to note that the phrase Kazak Grammar Nazi is not related to the concept that was discussed in the article. This is the name of the program, within the framework of which in Kazakhstan, starting in 2017, there is a gradual transition to the Latinization of the Kazakh language.
Translation of Grammar Nazi is carried out from two languages. In English the first word means "grammar", and the second in German is "Nazi". We are talking about both a well-known Internet meme and an ironic name (and self-name) of one of the communities on the Internet. More details about what Grammar Nazi means will be discussed in the article.
General concept
The Grammar Nazi online community is notable for its approach to literacy issues with extreme pedantry and intolerance. They judge a person only by the level of his language proficiency. And, in particular, about the ability to write correctly.
The Internet project "Urbanculture" speaks of Grammar Nazi as an online creature that cares with every fiber of its soul for the correct spelling of words, punctuation marks and for the purity of native speech in general. Many members of the Internet community perceive this “creature” as a fat troll who provokes controversy and abuse almost out of nowhere. It also generates “much noise about nothing.”
On the cynical and humorous website "Lurk" Grammar Nazi are defined as national linguists, grammatical Nazis, linguistic fascists, literate guardsmen. They are described as aggressive literates with innate literacy and a heightened sense of beauty. They get very annoyed when someone makes mistakes - spelling or grammatical. They immediately rush to the attack, waving dictionaries and referring to Gramota.ru.
GN Ruthlessness
The name of the community we are considering goes back to the word “Nazism,” which is an allusion to the ruthlessness of its members. Sometimes members of the Grammar Nazi use emblems that contain a large Latin letter “G”, stylized as the flag of the Third Reich. This emblem shows signs of imitation of Nazi symbols, to which law enforcement agencies have repeatedly shown their reaction.
Among the Wikipedians there is also Grammar Nazi. They spend a significant part of their time correcting errors in articles. The members of Grammar Nazi are called GN for short, or GN. If an associate of GN makes a mistake himself, especially when he denounces the ignorant, they speak of Grammmar Nazi fail (failure). It must be understood that when GBVs call for the extermination of the illiterate, they do not mean the literal embodiment of the action they call. They either make a stern reprimand or “turn on the ban.”
This is how linguist M.A. Krongauz writes about the most “severe” Grammar Nazis. According to him, the most radical of literacy activists are people who neglect communication interests. They are not engaged in discussing the stated topic, but are analyzing the mistakes the interlocutor made in written speech. Their characteristic feature is the desire to correct the interlocutor, rather than communicate with him.
Objective prerequisites
According to a certain part of Internet users, such a phenomenon as Grammar Nazi did not arise out of nowhere. Today, it is no secret to anyone that with the spread of the World Wide Web, a huge mass of people poured into it, much of whose literacy leaves much to be desired.
As a consequence, the level at which communication takes place, as they say, does not shine. Both in terms of ethics and literacy. Nevertheless, there is a circle of people who are well educated, highly intelligent, broad-minded, well-read and erudite.
In the most natural way, the manifestation of widespread ignorance, disrespect for the native language, and sometimes even flaunting such shortcomings, causes some of them to feel indignant. And it’s really “a shame for the state.”
Is there any benefit?
Is there any benefit from members of this community? According to a number of Internet users, it is obvious. By correcting other people's mistakes, they raise the level of Internet literacy. Other users express the opinion that there is nothing wrong with the fact that there are errors in the text. The main thing is that its essence is clear.
To this GN respond that rules in language exist not for the sake of beauty, but precisely so that people understand each other. And if everyone writes as they want, then the result will be not a conveyance of thoughts in writing to the interlocutor, but a “stream of consciousness.”
There is another argument against GBV. Language is not a frozen substance, it develops, so making certain vital adjustments to it, including in the direction of simplification, is quite acceptable. While the Grammar Nazis persist in their conservatism in vain.
In response to this, GN retort: the language within the life of one generation, as well as the rules existing in it, change very little so that this could cause any obvious discrepancies. And all reasoning of this kind is from the evil one.
A huge minus is in the methods
If we consider the idea of GN in a very generalized form, then at first glance everything does not seem to be so bad. The development of a culture of speech, love for the Russian language, cleaning up mistakes - all this can be called commendable.
However, despite the good intentions of the Grammar Nazis, the methods by which they achieve literacy are sometimes “beyond the bounds”. This is trolling (bullying), insulting other participants, threats against them.
According to M. A. Krongauz, in practice, everything often comes down to painful pokes at everyone who made a mistake. The “linguistic arrogance” exhibited by Grammar Nazi is very exaggerated and has a destructive beginning. Pointing out an error is quite easy, but with design it is much more difficult.
About some incidents
Let us give examples of the attention that was shown by authorities to the phenomenon we are describing.
- In Buryatia, in Ulan-Ude, activist of the Young Guard movement M. Burdukovskaya was fined by the court for publishing the Grammar Nazi emblem on the VKontakte page in 2014. According to the court decision, she violated the ban on Nazi symbols in Russia.
- In 2015, the head of the Total Dictation Foundation, A. Pavlovsky, was summoned to the prosecutor's office of the Oktyabrsky district in Rostov -on-Don on the issue of possible financing of the Grammar Nazi Foundation. This was explained by the fact that the prosecutor's office decided that we were talking about a pro-Nazi movement.
In order to avoid misunderstandings, in conclusion I would like to note that the phrase Kazak Grammar Nazi is not related to the concept that was discussed in the article. This is the name of the program, within the framework of which in Kazakhstan, starting in 2017, there is a gradual transition to the Latinization of the Kazakh language.
