Actually, I’m More Of A Grammar Stalinist (Blog Post)

10/19/2017

By: Tiffany Williams

I don’t usually respond to comments or tweets directly on my blog, but I thought this particular case warranted a post.

I was recently referred to as a “grammar nazi” and I wholeheartedly disagree. I do not appreciate having my zeal for correct usage and mechanics compared to the inhuman atrocities committed by the Third Reich.

I understand the impulse to draw up Holocaust imagery to address my ferocious choice to rectify other’s misuse of punctuation. I’m forceful, but I’m no nazi. Joseph Stalin’s forced famine that resulted in the death of over seven million is the more appropriate metaphor.

These fascist totalitarian states were more than just genocidal. There is a fundamental difference in the ethos of Stalinism and Nazism. My approach to enforcing grammatical rules aligns philosophically with principles of Stalin.

I can’t stand the thought of my readers holding my passion for grammar up to to the crimes against humanity committed by Adolf Hitler and his cabal of bloodthirsty psychopaths. The crimes against humanity committed by Joseph Stalin and his cabal of bloodthirsty psychopaths are the much more apt comparison.

Stalinism is about the elevation of one man as a god-like instrument of the will of the people. Nazism is better understood as the scientific hyper-rationalization of extreme eugenics to promote a superior genetic pool.

When somebody drops an Oxford comma, I don’t obliterate the entire population of offending writers. My corrections are an opportunity to raise my own status even higher. I think you’d agree that’s much more Stalinist than Nazi.

See you on Twitter and in the comments. I can’t wait to hear what you think!

XOXO + my Best Wishes,

Tiffany Williams.