There Ain't No Such Thing as No "Bad Grammar!"

A great majority of the general population-particularly among English teachers, professors, and students nationwide-cling to a very misleading perception of the English language: the idea of there being "bad grammar." I'm sure you've heard of it; all the "ain't"s, "I'm doing good"s, "y'all"s, and double negatives that make your ears burn and teeth grind. Yet despite your previous precepts concerning the English language-or any language, at that-I'm here to lay a perhaps unpopular fact on you. There is no such thing as "bad grammar."

Before I explain how and why such a seemingly absurd idea found its way into my head, let us examine language as a whole, its purpose, and what it means to us, the collective species known as humans.

Language is "any system of formalized symbols, signs, sounds, gestures, or the like used or conceived as a means of communicating thought, emotion, etc." (Thank you, dictionary.com.) The key phrase in that definition, as far as this argument goes, is any system. Why? Because establishing that language is any system suggests that if what has been said is understood by whoever it's spoken to, an acceptable language was used, whether or not we agree the grammar governing that particular form of communication meets our standards. In other words, language exists before grammar, which somehow to me makes it more important. It's kind of like a, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" scenario, only with a more obvious answer. Language, obviously, came before grammar; without language, grammar would have nothing to regulate. In a kingdom scenario, we would say things ran like this: the grammar is the sheriff, but the language is the king.

I have about twenty other metaphors, but I digress.