I know in English is different, but in Spanish this rules are even more stupid. It sounds as it’s read, so there is no phonetical difference between “v” and “b”, our “h” is completely useless, and a lot more. So, yes, grammar rules are completely ignorable as long as you can get the message along, but in a book or something like that, I think there shouldn’t be any grammar or spelling mistakes, you know? It’s not an idea I can defend, it just seems strange to me.
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I was joking around, and I’m sorry if that didn’t come across. As a person with a good deal of copyediting experience I have come to discussions like this many, many times and have many peeves myself. However, I’ve also had to work to move beyond that sense of peevishness because…
Do we have a house style/are style guides a good thing? Yes. That’s because consistency helps ensure meaning comes across, and keeps text looking tidy. But using grammar and usage rules as a wedge to retain a level of privilege is harmful. So I joke a lot about “pedant points” as a scorekeeper.
A good analogy on language and grammar policing, I think is table manners–a set of codified rules about how one “should” eat at table. Snobby people think those who don’t follow those epicurean rules are “lesser,” but in fact, real manners are about making everyone feel comfortable and welcome. Remember that scene in To Kill a Mockingbird where Scout has a poor classmate home to lunch, and he drowns his plate in syrup? And Scout pitches a fit and shames him at table until the family cook drags her away from the table and tells her she’s the one with no manners. Same deal.
Does the pedant in me wince when I see a published book that used “illusive” where “elusive” was meant? Oh, big time. But shrug. Look up “enormity” and “flammable.” Language is as language does…descriptivism ftw.
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Thanks for clarifying! Sometimes it’s very hard to know a person’s tone in writing, especially when the people involved don’t know each other! That’s why I often rely on emojis to make sure people know I mean no harm. I don’t even like emojis but I find they’re facial expressions’ and intonation’s next best thing when it comes to written conversations.
I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree on the very subjective topic of what “real manners” are and who possesses/lacks them (otherwise I’d think that making people feel bad for being pedantic shows really bad manners 
) but this whole discussion has been very interesting and I’m glad to have been a part of it! Descriptivism and prescriptivism both have their pros and cons 
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The double please with the last one capitalised which in internet land usually denotes a demand or yelling instead of a FYI or suggestion, is probably why this thread has got the response it did even if it was unintended by the OP.
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I used to be very particular about proper grammar, and I admit that some things still annoy me (number vs amount for example, or mixing tenses–have went instead of have gone), but then I read something somewhere, a simple text post online, might even have been a tweet, that pointed out that elevating one way of speaking over another/the policing of language is just another manifestation of racism and classism.
And I realized that the term grammar nazi was perhaps more apt than I had originally considered. My own spoken language today is still quite “proper,” I cant bring myself to say things like “ain’t” or “y’all” even though it’s extremely common in the US generally and in the area I grew up in in particular, but I’ve stopped policing others and feel more than a little shame at my past behavior. Becoming friends with a linguist and then becoming an English (as a foreign language) teacher myself only solidified my disgust with prescriptivism even more.
Finally for any poetry lovers out there, may I recommend 3 Ways to Speak English
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But is “Blonde/Blond” distinction truly antiquated?? Is the English language changing so fast that, as a foreign speaker, I’m getting left behind?
Also, I don’t understand why some people are so touchy on the subject; I have not shamed anyone of using ‘blonde’, I have only implored them not to (because a peeve’s a peeve), and have provided a very easy way to resolve the issue in coding. It’s my theory that people become offended because the shaming is what they expect.
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I would agree if it is in a non formal setting, such as sending messages to each other, and I have no problem at all saying things like “y’all’d’ve” and other slang. But the narrative of a book is another thing unless it is in first person and the narrater has character/ is unreliable.
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I dont think its antiquated so much as a useless distinction. As English doesnt have grammatical genders, and many English speakers probably don’t realize that the words are French, it’s a distinction without difference. I didn’t know that there was a meaningful difference between blond and blonde until I was a teenager at least, and I doubt I would notice the usage in English even today.
For me it’s like this: sometimes I start a sentence in English and finish it in Russian, and when I do that, I follow the English grammar rules even when I’m speaking in Russian because the sentence as a whole kind of lacks grammatical logic? What’s the point of following the rules when you’ve already thrown the rules out the window? Which rules are even the correct rules in this situation?
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Ach. The limitations of written language. Maybe I should get used to using emojis. Thanks for pointing it out, though.
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It happens. I’ve had the tone of post misread on various forums (usually when my sarcasm inadvertantly creeps in and I’m taken to be serious.) It’s one of the joys of text only communication but unfortunately can put people on edge if the tone of the post does not come through as you anticipated.
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I’m not sure I underestand this example… It’s not like written narrative lacks grammatical logic as spoken or informal language should. I could mix up Korean, Japanese, and English with some odd Danish I picked up, but I’d never do that in a book’s narrative, unless the narrative is said by a character, not a narrator with no personality…
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Right, and here we do disagree, completely.
My grandfather was a professor, and he constantly, constantly policed his children’s language. So much so that correcting people in this way was second nature to them.
One day, when she was a young teen, my aunt was hanging out with friends and one of them said “If I was [blah blah]” and my aunt interjected, “If you were [blah blah].” Her friend stopped cold, stared at her and said, “Don’t ever do that.”
And the scales fell from my aunt’s eyes because she realized it’s rude. It’s rude, and it’s pointless. It does nothing except demonstrate that you want your interlocutor to know you’re “better” than them. It’s rude to ever correct someone like that, socially, and make them wrong in front of other people. It’s rude to do so privately, too, which is what her father had done to her all those years, “He was hanged, not hung”; “Gretchen and I went”; etc… that was rude. Pedantry is rude. It serves little to no purpose, and for me is something we can and should laugh about. Because it’s pointless at best, and rude and classist and exclusionary at worst.
So we’re arguing now about what’s ruder: talking in the quiet car or shushing people who talk in the quiet car. Let’s agree that the first offense is rude to begin with before we decide that showing people how and why they are being rude is, itself, a rudeness as well.
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Okay, let me give a concrete example. The Russian word babushka has made it into the English language well enough that most English speakers I know know that it means grandmother. They might say something like “I love cute little Russian babushkas,” but Russian is not like English–you don’t use “s” to make things plural. The (nominative) plural of babushka is babushki. Most English speakers dont know that, and I wouldn’t expect them to. When words get imported, their associated grammar might not be imported with them, even in narration. If a narrator (a regular old non character narrator) used babushkas (maybe describing the grannies selling blini at a market in Brighton Beach), I would consider that as “correct” as it could be considering it isn’t really an English word but it’s being used in English
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Socially, I agree. But I don’t think a request about writing and games, one eventually paid for, is a social shaming.
Some people might, but that’s not always true. I know people with OCD, and even for people simply with peeves, it’s a strong and sometimes overwhelming desire to make something ugly pretty, something wrong in their eyes, right. To say it can only be about pride is rather presumptuos.
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Oh~ I understand better now.
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…I mean, sure. At the back of everything I’m saying is, yes, COG pays people who know the difference between blonde and blond to make sure they’re used in a standard way. We have line editors. We have copyeditors. If you feel our editors are doing a poor job, you are welcome to point out specific instances you’ve found. We make corrections and update games. Hosted Games…are a different story. And you’re likely to be disappointed.
Also, I guess I missed that you weren’t a native speaker.
As a semi-professional pedant I do have to say, this particular peeve is pretty eye of the needle. If I caught this mistake in something published, my inner pedant* would not cry “Idiots!” the way I do get about other errors, because I would say English is evolving on this one. Blond/blonde is going the same way that you often hear women thespians call themselves “actors” rather than “actresses.” Gendering stuff is leaching out in common usage.
*I wanted to point out that if it wasn’t clear…I am super guilty of being this way! I have many peeves! I’ve just also had to evolve my thinking on those peeves from being a prescriptivist to becoming a descriptivist, as both a professional editor and a person because there’s just too much bullshit tied up in it all, as per previous comments.
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It isn’t necessarily changing “so fast,” but it’s definitely changing. The gendering of hair color just isn’t really in common usage anymore. I was born and raised in an English speaking country and this is honestly the first time I’ve heard of the male version of brunette, and I don’t remember the last time I saw someone spell blonde without the e. There are definitely some people who still adhere to these rules, which I don’t think are archaic by any means, but it’s falling out of fashion.
Not every novel, or author, or publishing house, adheres to the same rules of formality. If you pick apart most published works, including Choice of Games products, you’ll undoubtedly find quite a lot of grammatical “issues” or “errors,” things that are technically wrong but included intentionally for the sake of making the act of reading comfortable for the audience, or for making the prose stylized in the way the author wants, or for a whole host of reasons. Outside of academic papers, not many writers are perfectly grammatical.
It’s fine to have a pet peeve, but the thing about them is that they aren’t a concern to everyone. It’s perfectly understandable to be irked by what seems like a very simple error, and it’s incredibly polite to suggest a solution to the problem. But you also just kind of have to accept that gendering hair color is becoming less and less standard, and while I’m sure there are some writers who will incorporate your suggested fix, there are also a lot of people who disagree that it’s a problem.
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Towards “Blond” or “Blonde” as gender neutral?
I see both! Which is to say I’ve seen men referred to as “blonde” and women as “blond.” And that’s why I say this one is pretty eye of the needle for a peeve. The evolution, at least as I’ve observed it is taking the terminal e and making it almost an alternate spelling, therefore rather than an alternate meaning.
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English is so confusing ; - ;
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