People today are literally ruining the English language by neglecting to abide by the basic laws of grammar. You may think my last sentence ironic because I misused the word “literally”, though technically, you would be wrong. Even the renowned Cambridge Dictionary can attest the word has been altered to satisfy our usage. Its entry for ‘literally’ currently includes “also used to emphasize a statement and suggest that it is surprising.” That’s right; the word has been misused so often that its definition needed to be amended.

But this begs the question: If thousands upon thousands of English speakers are constantly misusing grammar and syntax rules yet still being understood, then what is the purpose of having them at all? In other words, how long must people use something incorrectly before it is considered “right?”

For an easy example, we must look at the use of the word “good.” Good is an adjective, not an adverb. Therefore, it is completely incorrect to say that “I played good last night.” You can’t describe the way you played with “good,” because it’s not an adverb. This is why instead you say, “I played ‘well’ last night.” Although this is what is taught and is in fact correct, the rule is constantly neglected. If it is constantly ignored because people can understand each other either way, what’s the purpose of having it as a rule in the first place?

My point in all this is simply to ask the following: do we follow language or does language follow us? Or rather, which is better for society? If nobody adheres to rules in grammar, we have are two options, either change the rules or start following them. It seems we’ve chosen the former.