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[btsmrtfan]

http://www.aol.com/article/2016/08/04/17-grammar-mistakes-you-really-need-to-stop-correcting-like-now/21445175/

Comments?

[adventious]

The author of the article stipulates in the second paragraph:

If you're a teacher, maybe this doesn't apply to you; it's your job to correct students' grammar. But, some of us--even professional writers--need to turn it down a notch.

The repeated admonition of the article is really one of manners-- Don't be a jerk about distinctions that are the stuff of a high school exam that many people have trouble remembering.
What I like most is his effort to explain points of usage he claims aren't necessary to correct.
A response to Murphy's article by Laura Lieff addresses the gist

1.Never use grammar as a way to belittle others.
2.Don’t interrupt others while they’re speaking to correct them.
3.Speak to others kindly and with respect.

and accurately (in my opinion) addresses matters Murphy too readily glozed.

Apple’s ad campaign featuring “Think different.” The article says, “Grammatically, it’s flat-out wrong to skip the -ly in an adverb – but the truth is, nobody cares.”

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I saw the breaking of the grammar rule to be a strategic, purposeful marketing ploy. Apple broke the rules; they’re “thinking differently.” The company is actively showing us how they embody innovation by ignoring convention. They are fulfilling every writer’s goal: to show and not tell. I appreciate their message. I applaud their conscious decisions and the thought they put into their advertising. I believe the highly intelligent people at Apple didn’t get together and say, “I just don’t like how ‘think differently’ sounds… let’s make it ‘think different.’”

I doubt either knows Apple's campaign was a 30 year reply to IBM's own, but I digress.

Except for double negatives, Murphy is happy to conflate grammar and usage (as many do, including Lieff who admits an ignorance of i.e. and e.g.) to adopt the often abused rationale of some descriptivists to avoid engaging the topic as one with a history and prior study. That rationale is: What a plurality of speakers say can be considered a standard.

Which quickly becomes highly subjective in terms of advocacy. I remind myself very little "published" on the web is meant to do anything other than garner clicks-- the web has become a persuasive medium (ads) and the author has produced a larger-than-average "listicle" in a persuasive mode.

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.
— Confucius

[stooze]

Don't criticise at the expense of praise. That's what matters.

[Trina Marlow]