Ever-changing dialects keep English moving – but grammar is its north star | Simon Jenkins

Protesting that ‘bad’ grammar should not hold someone back will not stop it from doing so. Accuracy is in everyone’s interest

I say tomahto and you say tomayto. My wife says dahrling and I say my dear. We all speak differently, and some of us speak different. Does it really matter?

Things matter if people think they do. I remember being with a group of Manchester businessmen whose bitterest complaint was that London stole their brightest young people and carried them off south. And not just that. ...