Calm down.
Go take two years of linguistics, and you will get over this sort of thing.

Do you understand what they mean? If yes, then there is no real cause for complaint.

Take for example that great bugbear of the grammar nazis: the apostrophe. Did you know that the genitive apostrophe is a relatively recent invention (about the 17th century)? Previously we just used an s. The apostrophe was meant to help distinguish plurals from genitives, which in turn was caused by a long term trend in English towards 's' as an indicator of the plural through various linguistic shifts. Take the word cherry. The plural was cherrisen and the singular was cherrise. Ignorant numpties are the reason we have cherry and cherries today, and pea and peas (was pease and peasen).
And speaking of genitive, the use of the apostrophe seems to have disappear from genitives, and is given only to "possessives". When's the last time you saw some-one write "a year's salary".

The grammar nazis have had their impact on language, too. The idea that Latin grammar is the only valid grammar was strong for a long time. So we ended up with silly notions that you can't end a sentence with a proposition, or split an infinitive despite the fact that English works differently to Latin, and that people had been splitting infinitives and ending sentences with prepositions for a long time before they learnt Latin grammar.

The list is near endless. Take the word 'can'. Originally it meant "to know". However, English has undergone deep structural change from a fairly highly inflected language with numerous verb (and noun and adjectival) forms to one where we now use modal verbs all over the place.

Language changes. Some want it to change one way, others want it to change another, and some rather it didn't. The tension between all these groups creates the language we use.
( Sextant goes to him is emotionally erect, on this day, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 12:59, 2 replies)

ha!
Damn you and your fair, equitable and even handed approach to this debate.

Also, I think you meant "Go AND take two years of linguistics..."

Oh forget it - I'll GET my coat!
(marcooosa has no idea what a board sig is, Wed 24 Mar 2010, 14:56, closed)

Well said.
If you understand what they mean, there's no problem.
( ThisCaledonianClown has left it far too late, Thu 25 Mar 2010, 11:49, closed)