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Thomas Castino
Mrs. Bolton & Mrs. Taylor
English IV
17 April 2015
English
I am a Grammar Nazi. I will proudly admit to that and embrace the title. Many people
despise and try to repel Grammar Nazis on the Internet. Im not as hardcore as the stereotypical
Grammar Nazi as I dont try to correct every mistake I see, no matter how much I want to. The
only reason I dont correct people is because everyone acts exasperated and makes me look like
the bad guy. Often, they end up treating me as if Im attacking them when, in reality, Im just
trying to help. This is a common theme that Im noticing nowadays in people: they dont
appreciate criticism or help in any way. Everyone thinks they are right and nobody can tell them
otherwise. This seems to be especially prevalent when people talk or write. It is becoming more
common for people to ignore standard grammar rules and forget what they learned about writing.
Now, people just write completely in their own voice. Im not saying there is anything wrong in
writing with some personality, but most people write as if they were having an oral conversation.
This is an awful habit for anyone to develop as it is difficult to escape and can lead to horrendous
writing. The amount of people butchering the language is almost alarming, and actually might
begin to reshape it in the near future.
Language, especially English, is fluid. It is always changing. Ever since its creation,
English has undergone seemingly constant change and reform. The roots of this reform lie in
other languages and cultures incorporating parts of themselves directly into English. Most of
Englishs major changes have been applied when other cultures were surrounding it. Other minor

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changes come from the native speakers themselves. Sometimes, a word or a phrase becomes so
common that a change must be made to accommodate. For example, so many native English
speakers have begun to use literally to mean its opposite, figuratively, some dictionaries
have added a second definition to the word. Now, literally contains its true definition and
used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally true. As a Grammar
Nazi, this appalls me. People are having a negative impact on a language that is hardly holding
itself together after all of the change it has had over its years. Essentially, English is a language
that has been developing with the influence of a plethora of different cultures, and now its native
speakers are beginning to ruin it.
Lets start from the beginning. Around 6,000 years ago, a language known today as
Proto-Indo-European, or PIE for short, was the language spoken in the Mesopotamian region.
For the past three centuries, linguists have studied many of the worlds languages and concluded
that about two-thirds of them can be traced back to this same ancestor language (Is This How
Our Ancestors Sounded?). Yep, you guessed it, English is one of them. This language did not
have any writing; it was entirely spoken. Due to this, it was extremely prone to change.
Obviously, considering it is the root of so many different languages, this is exactly what
happened. A lot. PIE spread all over the world and was quickly influenced by the different people
of each region. It would be a bit crazy to think that all of these languages stemmed directly from
PIE, and that is not true. PIE, however, did evolve into Latin, Inuit, Indian, and Japanese. As we
all know, Latin essentially broke apart into many European languages like English, French,
German, Italian, and Spanish. English is a bit of an odd ball in this group as it did not directly
stem from Latin or PIE.

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English was first created in around the 5th century AD. According to renowned author
David Crystal, this is the most important period of time for English, (Crystal). David Crystal
has written over 100 books about English. These writings range from the history of the language
to how it is spoken and written. Anyway, at around the time of its creation, the area which is now
known as the United Kingdom had just gotten rid of its Latin-speaking occupants: the Romans.
Latin eventually mixed with the various Celtic languages of the region and formed a new
language. While this all sounds dandy, the departure of the Romans left the land almost free for
pickings. It did not take long for Germanic tribes to invade and begin to impose their culture
upon the natives. Germanic tribes may sound a bit familiar as this included the infamous Angles
and Saxons. The Jutes also came with them, but we dont talk about them. Anyway, the Angles
and Saxons largely shaped the Latin-Celtic language and created yet another language that
dominated the region. Angles spoke Englic, which is where English comes from. Englic was
written in runes, which are kind of like letters with minor differences. Many of these runes
transferred and molded with Latin characters to create the English alphabet.
After the Germanic tribes were done with the English region, Christian monks began
travelling to the area. Christianity was an instant hit in England. It was the hot new thing and
everyone just had to convert! But, with Christianity comes Latin. Now that Latin had returned to
England, it further shaped English and arguable more so than its original visit. With the Bible
and various other writings, it shaped the old Englic runes into simpler characters, called letters.
Finally, Old English was formed. Despite its name, Old English is almost entirely illegible and
looks like a foreign language to native speakers today. Old English didnt last long without some
other people coming in and messing it up, which seems to be a recurring theme in the language.

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In around 800 AD, Vikings arrived in England. They pillaged and stole and burned and
did all that stuff Vikings do. But more importantly, they brought their language. They brought
about 2,000 words to Old English. These words include some of the most common English
words today such as they, their, and them (A Brief History of the English Language). The
Vikings did not stay long, and in 1066, England was once again invaded.
This time, instead of barbarians or Germanic tribes, it was by the much more civilized
French. The Duke of Normandy easily took control of England and brought with him French
people. The French had a tremendous impact on English and catapulted it further by providing
vocabulary, grammar, and culture. The reason we use French words to describe food like a la
carte or a la mode is because of the French being much more sophisticated and richer than the
English farmers. It is also for this reason that we use beef to talk about cow as food is because
the French, who could afford it, would use their word, beef, to describe the food. However, the
farmers maintained their word for the animal: cow. This is the same for several other animals
such as pig, sheep, and deer. The French brought another influence of Latin to Old English and
helped pave the path from Old English to Middle English. A large number of words taken from
French that contributed to Middle English have Greek roots. The Ancient Greek language played
a large role in forming Latin and French retained a lot of Latin. Therefore, French had a lot of
Ancient Greek. This is the only contact that English has really had with Ancient Greek despite a
countless amount of words having Greek roots. Middle English, compared to Old English, is
much closer to Modern English, which is to be expected. Middle English was the language of
England when they went to war with the French in the Hundred Years War. The result of this
war was the expulsion of the French and finally some peace in England.

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It was not until the Renaissance that English once again underwent major changes. The
Renaissance brought the printing press and a new way of thinking. People now craved
knowledge and the best way to obtain knowledge is to read. The only problem here is that people
did not know how to read. Thankfully, the sudden influx of books filled with information drove
people to learn and become literate. This was a huge advancement in culture and helped to
develop standards for written English. Developing standards and rules for written English also
created many for spoken English with made more changes. It did not take long for Shakespeare
to come along and make a mess that would haunt high school students forever. But,
Shakespeares legacy should not be seen as just writing good plays. He alone created about 2,000
new English words and phrases. He revolutionized poetry and using Englishs spectacular
vocabulary to its fullest. He made the language much more beautiful and allowed more
expression to be had via literature (History of the English Language). About 200 years later,
English was once again reformed.
During the period between 1750 and 1800, dictionaries began to be created. Dictionaries
allowed people to learn their language far beyond their average vocabulary. Finally, spelling
errors have been eliminated as people have a source in which they can find any answer involving
definitions or spelling of words! Accompanying the dictionary was the English version of the
Bible. Sure, there were translations of the Bible into English earlier than this, but now it was
popular. People began reading this English version much more often learned more from it. These
books assisted greatly in teaching and learning the language (Crystal). At this point, English is
finally coming together and blossoming into the beautiful language we have today.
At long last, English is becoming a very formal and civilized language. But now the
question is: why is English being spoken all over the world? Three words: The British Empire.

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England was dominating the world with its far superior navy and military force. England
practically shoved its culture and language down the throats of its colonists all over the world.
The mix of so much culture into the language after the reign of the British Empire contributed
greatly to its language. If it were not for this mix, the language would definitely not be the
melting pot of culture that it is today.
Finally, Modern English. Modern English became distinguishable from Middle English
relatively recently. Kevin Stroud, the man behind the History of English Podcast, said English
was a radically different language over 1,000 years ago. And it was still a very different language
as recently as 3 or 4 centuries ago, (Stroud). With the development of the Internet and a
globalizing culture, English is leading the pack of popular languages. Obviously, it cant compete
with Chinese in terms of native speakers. But English non-native speakers are growing in
number exponentially as it is becoming standard to learn it in most developed countries. Kevin
Stroud addressed this, talking about how a hybrid of all the different English dialects that are
emerging will combine into one standard, worldwide English language. In my opinion, that
would be cool but at the same time a step backward. A large part of English now is that it is
different all over the world. Combining all of them would lose all of that culture and that would
be sad indeed.
English has a pretty crazy history behind it that has shaped it into the beautiful language
it is today. It is a shame that its beauty is being diminished and forgotten due to people distancing
themselves from being proficient in the language. I hope one day all native English speakers are
able to appreciate English for how great it truly is.
Remember when I said I was a Grammar Nazi? Well, I really love grammar. I could go
on for days about punctuation or spelling or sentence structure. However, I obviously have some

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flaws. For example, I use too many commas sometimes or I make run-on sentences. Im not the
best with semicolons or using good vocabulary. Despite all of my own personal grammar flaws, I
still love English grammar and loathe watching my peers make such simple mistakes. All I want
to do is correct people so they are aware that they are making a mistake and hopefully will not in
the future. The only problem is that people cant handle being corrected and are too stubborn to
change their ways. Everyone thinks they are always right and cant stand to hear otherwise. This
is the problem with the world as a whole nowadays, and it is a major reason why English
grammar is deteriorating amongst its speakers.
I was able to interview an English teacher at ACHS who shared a lot of similar thoughts
with me: Mr. Worden. For example, on the topic of simply constructing a sentence, Mr Worden
said: The number of students with no idea what makes a sentence a sentence is truly
staggering...the result is often a terrifying mess of fragments, run-ons, and stream-ofconsciousness confusion, (Worden). English speakers today, especially teenagers, seem to be
losing grasp of basic grammar. These include forming sentences, spelling, punctuation, and word
choice. In fact, Im disgusted when I hear people try to read aloud. It is almost as if they had
never learned how to do it, and dont even seem to realize it. Speaking of how things sound,
people also seem to be losing their sense of knowing how things should sound. By this, I mean
most native speakers should be able to reread a sentence or a paragraph and have that feeling of
whether or not it is correct. Nowadays, this does not appear to be the case. I have had personal
experience with this with my friends. I would ask them to repeat a sentence or read it out loud
and they would not be able to see the problem with it. Mr. Worden also talked about how much
better it is for readers to pick up on these sort of things. He said that readers have a much better
sense of what sounds right or wrong than non-readers (Worden). Based on the fact that many of

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my peers loathe reading, this seems like a logical conclusion to make. Basically, people today
suck at English. This is not entirely because it is hard, but because they dont care enough to
really pay attention.
Earlier, I mentioned the change of the word literally. This is now one of the more
common mistakes being brought to light when the subject is brought up. Im not really sure why
this has become so popular, but everyone seems to be using literally in this way now.
Obviously, there are people who oppose it and try to call people out on using it incorrectly, but
most people, including myself, fall victim to its grasp. Other common grammar mistakes include
the difference between your/youre, their/theyre/there, its/its, and anything involving an
apostrophe. Im not going to go into depth with the spelling mistakes because Im trying very
hard to avoid making this a rant. On the other hand, Im most definitely going to cover the
apostrophe.
. That is how big it is. It is the same size as a comma yet misused unimaginably more
often. I am not entirely sure where the source of confusion here is, but I will give it my best
guess. First off, the apostrophe is almost unique to English. Other languages use it, but almost
none in the same way as English. The most common use of it is to make a word possession. For
example, You cant play with that, it is Emilys toy. In that sentence, the toy belongs to Emily
and not to whomever the sentence is directed. When using an apostrophe to indicate possession,
there are two different methods: singular and plural words. The general rule is that if the word
does not end with an s, then an s is added to the end of the word. In my example, Emily
is singular, so I added an s to make Emilys. For words ending with an s, which usually
means it is plural, then the apostrophe goes after the s. An example of this is: All of the
dancers shoes were untied. Here, there are more than one dancer and all of their shoes are

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untied. Odd cases with apostrophes include singular words ending in s, such as Jesus, news,
United States. In these situations, it is easier and more common to simply add an apostrophe on
the end. However, it is generally acceptable to still add an s . The next use of an apostrophe is
to form contractions. Contractions are taking two words and mashing them together to make one.
These are arguably overused in English and there are a ton of them. A few examples are: Im,
youre, were, shouldve. Contractions are limited to two words, and a contraction like
shouldntve is incorrect in formal grammar.
That does not seem too hard, right? Use an apostrophe for possession and contractions.
Sure, there are some other minor, rarer uses, but those can be ignored for now. This is the part
that blows my mind: people have begun to use apostrophes to make words plural. Yep. The worst
are the words that end in y: babys, ladys, flys. What ever happened to Drop the y and add
ied,? That seemed like a very simple concept to me, and I learned it in second grade. Now, Im
not trying to brag, but if a second grader can comprehend such a basic rule, should teenagers and
adults not have it mastered? That is what seems logical. However, that is not the case in todays
time.
Nowadays, people have forgotten grammar. It has been thrown out the window, lost
forever. I dont foresee anybody beginning to care about grammar again in the near future. And
why should anyone? As technology gets more advanced, people can write by talking into their
phones using talk-to-text software. People have no reason to waste their time with grammar and
therefore simply dont even bother trying. The result is a population of people making constant
mistakes and being completely oblivious. It is truly sad to think about the death of an aspect of
the language that is so close to my heart. Hopefully, Im just being a Negative Nancy and people
might actually realize that they cant go on without knowing how to speak their language.

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There are too many mistakes to rant about and Im not trying to teach grammar here. I
merely wanted to address the fact that native English speakers are losing touch with their
language. Language has been around as long as humans, with written language being fairly new.
I think it is safe to assume that the creation of written language helped to advance the human race
as a whole. Now, as we let that aspect of our language slip from our hands, we lose a valuable
resource that was once very powerful. All I can do is sit by and hope that people realize how
important it is to know grammar.

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Works Cited
Bennett-Smith, Meredith. "Is This How Our Ancestors Sounded? Linguist Recreates Proto-IndoEuropean Language (AUDIO)." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 09 Sept.
2013. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.
Boyanova, M. "A Brief History of the English Language." Study English Today. N.p., n.d. Web.
22 Feb. 2015. <http://www.studyenglishtoday.net/english-language-history.html>.
Crystal, David. Personal interview. 11 April 2015.
"History of the English Language." English Club. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2015.
<https://www.englishclub.com/english-language-history.htm>.
Stroud, Kevin. Personal interview. 14 April 2015.
The, Oatmeal. "How to use a semicolon." The Oatmeal. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2015.
<http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon>.
Worden, Samuel. Personal interview. 11 April 2015.