These word usage corrections are important because they serve to educate people in the proper use of our own language. If we don't point out these kinds of mistakes, they get perpetuated and the written English language becomes a farce.
It's not a "put-down" or belittling to correct someone on the proper use of a particular word. It's just an educational process.
Yeah, I suppose you're right...in a civil, tolerant, gracious society.
But since we're all supposed to be appreciative of the educational processes, I found this bit of tid....
Bully Link
...in which this professorial perspective is offered:
“When people, especially publicly, correct others’ mistakes, a lot of that has to do with signaling to other people,” says Robert Kurzban, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania whose work focuses on the nature of evolved cognitive adaptations for social life. “People are trying to signal their expertise, because being able to identify mistakes indicates that you know more about something than the person who committed the error.”
Those who engage in public corrections of this sort often are looking to feel good about themselves, and, according to Benoît Monin, a psychology professor at Stanford University, displays of language all-knowing-ness provide a ready-made, two-pronged opportunity to do so. “The way we evaluate our competence is relative to other people,” he says. “If I need to feel good about my language skills, one way that I could do that would be to give myself evidence that my language skills are awesome. Another is to give myself evidence that other people’s language skills suck. So by putting down other people, I can feel better about myself.”
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That last sentence says a lot, doesn't it?
This forum sure has a lot of happy people!!
I know I sure feel better!!!!
