Grammar Nazis, I hate them, OCD Pricks, My Friends

I often get corrected by my friend, Landy.  Landy "corrects" me by saying "you mean to say...[Noun]"  Then, I say, "No, I really do mean...[Proper_Noun ending with s]"  When I sensed she misunderstood me, I began to explain, "Downtown there is this..." Then, she'd cut me off with a "whatever" before I could finish explaining to her what I meant.  She made the effort to correct me first, but when I tried to clear the misunderstanding, she pushed the subject off as though she didn't care for what I had to say to begin with. 


I am privileged to have a world-wide perspective.  In my youth, my parents have always allowed international students to stay in our home to take care of me while they studied English.  I know quite well what it is like to live with hearing grammar mistakes on a daily basis.  However, others may not.  

But rarely does anyone communicate with proper grammar anyways.
We are technically not supposed to start sentences with "but" or "and," but we do.
Most of the people getting their grammar corrected are on websites with a comments section.  I find that people there have a tendency to type how they speak and additionally include text speak.   And  in some sense, text speak adds freedom to the way we communicate.  LOL isn't a complete sentence.  It needs a period if it is to mean "Laugh out loud" as a command.  But do grammar Nazis use text-speak?  Yes! and they also wrongly use words they don't know!  We will all get old.  When parents use text-speak, they have the potential to be hilariously wrong!  Are they dumb? No! Some of those old ladies were probably once grammar Nazis themselves and they wrongly use "LOL" and "FML."

 Correcting grammar is petty and sometimes detracts from the main idea.   
Why would anyone want to correct someone else's grammar?  When someone corrects my grammar, I know it isn't for my sake.  Otherwise, they're doing me a favor I do not want in the first place.  It's like a petty attempt to put me down. 


When it is justified: (for the grammar Nazis)
When you are seeing the person often, and it still annoys you.
When that person making the mistake is going to turn in a report with errors, and you know them and are concerned for them.
When that person has asked you too.
When you really don't get what is being asked.
When the professor makes a mistake (that might be on a test) and may lead to wrong interpretation.

When not to:
When the crowd gets it, (and so do you), but you have no rebuttal to the point of the argument.


Why people seem to do it:
To create what seems to them as a rebuttal when they themselves have none.
When they want to put down the person being corrected for whatever reason.
When they are justified.


My judgement on people who do it when they aren't justified:
Petty, OCD, nit picky, time wasters.  
Grammar Nazis are by no means paragons for literary intelligence-- a subject in which a vast library of praised books for their profoundness purposely stretch the rules of grammar, syntax, and denotation to maybe paint a portrait or further a perspective.  I think English literature is very subjective, so I stay away from it, but I still have more respect for those who would analyze "Jabberwocky" which isn't supposed to make sense rather than correct for the proper usage of "their" vs "there" vs "they're."