“Grammar just don’t matter no more.”

More house Sounds like a grammatical error I know, but this is a house in the village of More. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Two women at the [a place I frequent] are making a sign & they’re trying to figure out the correct grammar of some awkward phrasing. They call me over and ask for my writer perspective. Both are retired teachers so I start (jokingly) giving them a hard time saying stuff like, “Aren’t you teachers? Shouldn’t you know this?”

After we go back and forth for a while and decide which version is correct, one finally says, “I don’t know why I bother worrying about it. The way kids today write on their cell phones.”

“I know. Some people completely butcher the language,” I say.

Another woman was lurking near us and she took this opportunity to jump into this conversation by saying, “It’s such a shame. Grammar just don’t matter no more.”

The other women and I freeze. There ensues the awkward pause by which all future awkward pauses should be judged. None of us will look at each other. Because as time ticked by it became obvious that this woman was completely serious and didn’t notice that she herself had just butchered the language. When it became clear that someone was going to finally have to say something, I said, completely stone faced, “Yeah. It don’t.” 

The two former teachers started laughing so hard I was afraid they were going to rupture something and the other woman looked at them, confused, with clearly no idea why they were laughing. So she turns back to me and, since from her perspective I was the person who was agreeing with her, started talking to me about what a shame it was the kids today “just don’t know no good grammar” and the other two women just kept laughing harder and harder the more she spoke. But since I felt guilty at this point, I just stayed completely stone faced and listened to her even though it was killing me to watch her obliviously butcher the English language… while complaining about people who butcher the language.

I finally excused myself from the conversation but, “Grammar just don’t matter no more” has become my new catch phrase. Say it in a thick Jersey accent for extra mileage.