The purpose of language is to communicate. If a given word usage or phrase is understood by a community of speakers, it's "correct"
Well yeah, but language is also used to persuade, to argue, to entertain, to engage people in a story, and to project a chosen version of yourself. We change our own language in selective ways to do all of these things and when language choices impede those things, it's worth pointing it out.
It's fine to accept the gradual shifts in how words are used, but that doesn't change the fact that when somebody says "different than" or writes "LFGSSers are far to obsessive about there bikes" it's like fingernails on a blackboard (to me at least). I totally understand what the person is getting at, but my response to what they're saying will be shaped by more than the bare facts (or opinion) that they're stating. How you say something can be as important as what you say.
Strangely enough, I'm fine with "Ginormous" because it's novel and expressive and doesn't get in the way of the use of any other word or phrase. On the other hand, when somebody says "I could care less" or "expresso" it bugs me because it's just a fuck-up (i.e., you can see that the origin of it is just somebody mishearing or misunderstanding something) and, more importantly, it's a fuck-up that has propagated because not enough people have been sharp enough to notice or have bothered to say "hold on, that doesn't actually make sense."
Well yeah, but language is also used to persuade, to argue, to entertain, to engage people in a story, and to project a chosen version of yourself. We change our own language in selective ways to do all of these things and when language choices impede those things, it's worth pointing it out.
It's fine to accept the gradual shifts in how words are used, but that doesn't change the fact that when somebody says "different than" or writes "LFGSSers are far to obsessive about there bikes" it's like fingernails on a blackboard (to me at least). I totally understand what the person is getting at, but my response to what they're saying will be shaped by more than the bare facts (or opinion) that they're stating. How you say something can be as important as what you say.
Strangely enough, I'm fine with "Ginormous" because it's novel and expressive and doesn't get in the way of the use of any other word or phrase. On the other hand, when somebody says "I could care less" or "expresso" it bugs me because it's just a fuck-up (i.e., you can see that the origin of it is just somebody mishearing or misunderstanding something) and, more importantly, it's a fuck-up that has propagated because not enough people have been sharp enough to notice or have bothered to say "hold on, that doesn't actually make sense."