Language Snobs?
I think that people are sometimes snobbish about language. For me, words and phrases are like clothes in a wardrobe. In terms of linguistic benefits, there are at least two possible results of having an education: you have more clothes in your wardrobe to choose from; and you may choose your garments with greater care and avoid embarrassment like turning up to a funeral in a swimming costume. Although using words inappropriately can jar, for example, using slang in a formal context or using the informal language of speech in formal written prose, there is nothing wrong with the words themselves. Swimming costumes are just swimming costumes, though convention dictates that they are best worn near water. Despite this, there are, and always have been, those who sneer at certain kinds of language. In the film My Fair Lady, when the former Cockney flower girl, Elisa, is taken by her educator to the races, she passes the test for most of the time and manages to wear the more formal language that the upper middle classes would have used in that context at the time. However, when in her excitement she reverts to her natural speech and shouts out at a horse, "Carm orn Dover, mooove ur eyend!", she is mortified to be caught wearing an inappropriate garment, and those around her are contemptuous of her language. But there is nothing wrong with her language - it communicates very well - even if some might argue that it is inappropriate in the context.
I think that people are sometimes snobbish about language. For me, words and phrases are like clothes in a wardrobe. In terms of linguistic benefits, there are at least two possible results of having an education: you have more clothes in your wardrobe to choose from; and you may choose your garments with greater care and avoid embarrassment like turning up to a funeral in a swimming costume. Although using words inappropriately can jar, for example, using slang in a formal context or using the informal language of speech in formal written prose, there is nothing wrong with the words themselves. Swimming costumes are just swimming costumes, though convention dictates that they are best worn near water. Despite this, there are, and always have been, those who sneer at certain kinds of language. In the film My Fair Lady, when the former Cockney flower girl, Elisa, is taken by her educator to the races, she passes the test for most of the time and manages to wear the more formal language that the upper middle classes would have used in that context at the time. However, when in her excitement she reverts to her natural speech and shouts out at a horse, "Carm orn Dover, mooove ur eyend!", she is mortified to be caught wearing an inappropriate garment, and those around her are contemptuous of her language. But there is nothing wrong with her language - it communicates very well - even if some might argue that it is inappropriate in the context.
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