Well, first of all, I think errors are "wrong" depending upon who is reading the paper and their level of knowledge about the English language. My level of critical reading would certainly be lower in criticism compared to the author of this article, a professor, or perhaps even people in this class. We all view error on different levels and see things as being "wrong" in different ways. This is especially apparent when you compare what a person or ordinary knowledge's criticisms to that of an English professor, or like minded practitioner. I think William's main point about mechanical errors is that overall they are not all that important because everyone sees them in a different manner and light.
He shows the errors of the professionals to illustrate the futility of making abstract grammatical rules. Also, it shows the importance of differences between these experts theory and actual practice of the English language. I think that he is locating errors in both the readers and writers in this essay and is trying to show that everyone is at least guilty some of the time and that being super critical of simple mistakes is arbitrary.
Good post, Mike.
ReplyDeleteYou picked up on the key themes.
It's not just about the futility of rules (although that's certainly a large part of it), but also perception, the noticing or not noticing, the idea that we only find errors when we go in looking for them.