ABSTRACT
Following from the discussion about idiolects and how there is an understandable human tendency to be prescriptive, it might be useful to explore some ‘language myths’. These fall into two categories:
• the somewhat arbitrary grammar rules that are broken by just about everyone, including great authors
• ideas about language in general that are, on close analysis, simply not true
In his book The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker (1994) dedicates a whole chapter to what he calls the ‘language mavens’. These are people, who, having mastered their own grammar to the point of irrational pride, find it diverting to comment on the perceived imperfections of everybody else’s grammar.
