Words Words Words

I had dinner with my Grandmother this weekend and she chastised me for using a particular word (sabbatical rather than sabbatic) incorrectly.  Of course, the particular word in question can be either a noun or an adjective in modern speech, but over a dinner of homemade mac and cheese I was told in no uncertain terms that sabbatical is and only should be an adjective—it was also rather heavily implied that this was the sort of thing that was causing the downfall of western civilization as we know it.  As I sat there, staring blankly at her shaking head (which she also managed to cradle in her hands for added emphasis that I was willfully contributing to the less than dignified slaughter of the English language), I couldn’t help but think “LANGUAGE CHANGES ALL THE TIME!  I’M RIGHT!  I WAS 100% ACCURATE IN MY WORD CHOICE! STOP ACCUSING ME OF NOT KNOWING WHAT I’M SAYING!” (I think I actually said something like “mmhmm” and tried not to giggle).  This is not the first time she’s bemoaned the butchering of the English language by those one or two generations removed from her own.  

That’s not to say that every instance of correcting a person’s word choice is wrong: I am personally quite disdainful of people who are past  the third grade and have yet to figure out your-you’re, or their-there-they’re.  With the exception of (actual) gross inaccuracies, I’m unlikely to correct someone at the dinner table; I will, however, admit to pedantically correcting certain friends of mine in private just to get their dander up—there is one friend in particular with whom I view this activity as a kind of sport.  No matter how much fun I may have at my little game with my dear friend (who hasn’t yet figured out she’s playing making it all the more fun and all the easier to get a rise out of her) I don’t generally assume that civilization will crumble if people have are a little bit fast and loose with verbiage in everyday speech.