4chan, on the other hand, is a completely different problem

When I think about things that bug me, many things come to mind: people who don't give straight answers, people who are indecisive, being purposefully vague, making shoddy arguments, people who'll lie to my face, 4chan...

But a lot of that just happens when I've been wronged. You want to know what I can't stand in a consistent manner that's plagued me since I was old enough to know what it was?

Grammar.

Grammar is wonderful. Grammar keeps words together and it makes them convey ideas. Grammar makes sentences clear and I'm going to list a few of the mistakes that drive me up the wall.

First off, less versus fewer. There are a lot of people that argue that this distinction is stupid, that there are no corresponding words for "more," and that the world hasn't fallen apart yet. I think these people are wrong. Let me point you to the sentence "There are more passionate people on the internet." I'm inclined to think it means more people who are passionate, but you really can't tell. Now let's try "There are fewer passionate people on the internet." Ah, there we go. We're clearly talking about the number of people. Clear. Concise. "There are less passionate people on the internet" talks about the overall level of passion. People on the internet are less passionate than people you find in real life. Still clear, but a completely different message.

The next thing that bothers me is elliptical clauses and how frequently they are misused. Elliptical clauses are clauses with an implied ellipsis (A series of three dots [...] is called an ellipsis, in case you didn't know). They're used in statements like "She's prettier than me," except that statement is wrong. She is pretty in a greater degree than...me. Her prettiness is greater than me. It's like trying to compare two completely different things. I'm not a level of attractiveness, so you can't compare them. You may think the meaning is still clear, but hold on. The correct thing to say is "She's prettier than I" because the implied ellipsis replaces the word "am." She's prettier than I [am].


This frequently is important in statements with objects. "He likes her more than me" means "He likes her more than [he likes] me," while "He likes her more than I" means "He likes her more than I [like her]." We can figure out where the rest of the sentence is if you put in the correct subject/object, but putting in the wrong one makes the sentence not actually make sense. In some situations, it's still clear, but in many, misusing this is conveying the completely incorrect message.


Another thing that drives me insane is phrases like "PIN number," "ATM machine" and "HIV virus." As I've said before, grammar is a tool that helps words convey information; the problem is that the information this conveys is that you don't know what you're saying, that you are ignorant of the words coming out of your mouth and what they mean, to the point where you don't understand that saying "Personal identification number number" is wrong. It makes it seem like you don't know what they stand for but you're saying them anyway, and that's terrible. You don't just start calling people loquacious before you know what the word means and you shouldn't say "ATM" without knowing it doesn't need to be followed by the word "machine."

In short, grammar is a tool that helps makes language understood and that makes it wonderful. Obviously, once you learn how to use a tool, you can start experimenting. The phrase "I don't sports" does not make grammatical sense, but effectively conveys your complete bewilderment by sports by implying you don't even know how to use the word. It conveys an idea and that's wonderful, but at the same time, you wouldn't want to throw out a phrase like that if you're teaching an ESOL class. The whole point of language is to convey ideas and when people don't do that clearly, it just infuriates me.

Which, now than I think about it, is exactly what bothers me about indecisiveness, being vague, lying, and, in a roundabout way, making shoddy arguments. Maybe it does tie together after all.