From the beginning of the appearance of the Internet in Russia, Internet resources and network communication were available only to a few. But since the mid-2000s, the Internet has become public, the cost of access to the network is falling, which is why people of all ages have appeared on the network. Forums, chats, social networks and other Internet resources are actively developing, where people of different generations can freely communicate on any topic.

Internet slang appears, which is becoming fashionable among young people. It has such features as a special spelling distortion (“preved”, “cho”, “malyffka”, etc.), as well as a tendency to shorten words (“norm”, “sps”, etc.). Internet users are divided into those who believe that it is necessary to be literate both online and in life (such people are nicknamed “grammar nazi” or grammar nazi online) and those who do not consider it important to follow the rules of the Russian language .

Common features

It is necessary to distinguish the concept of a literate person from the concept of grammar nazi. As a rule, ordinary literate people do not boast of their literacy online and do not try to teach the surrounding participants of forums and chats how to spell. The opposite applies to representatives of this Internet movement. They try to point out to everyone their blunders in spelling, punctuation, and even style. Such people often succumb to provocations from other participants in forums and chats, because of which they get angry, and communication descends to mutual insults.

A related “Grammar Nazi” trend is called purism. Its participants oppose the presence in their native language of words borrowed from other languages.

The situation with the Ukrainian language

In Ukraine, more than half of the population speaks Russian. But often leaves much to be desired. Due to the close integration of the Russian and Internet sectors in the network, bickering is not uncommon between the Russian-speaking population, for whom Russian is the main language, and Ukrainians, for whom Russian is not. Therefore, "grammar Nazis" can appear both from the Russians and.

A classic example of mixing languages ​​is the so-called surzhik, which is a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian language norms. It is typical for the eastern parts of Ukraine and the western regions of Russia.

Tendency to join Grammar Nazis

As a rule, "grammar Nazis" are people from 20 to 30 years old, for whom the Internet is more of a business than an entertainment role. They can create their own forums, social media groups and blog communities. There they communicate, argue about the rules of the Russian language, organize meetings of participants, etc. Particularly aggressive groups may agree on a coordinated attack on any

Translation of Grammar Nazi is carried out from two languages. In English, the first word means "grammar", and the second in German is "Nazi". We are talking about both a well-known Internet meme and the ironic name (and self-name) of one of the communities on the Internet. More about what Grammar Nazimar means will be discussed in the article.

General concept

The Grammar Nazi online community is notable for treating literacy issues with an extreme degree of pedantry and bigotry. They judge a person only by the level of his language proficiency. And, in particular, about the ability to write competently.

The Internet project "Urbankultura" speaks of Grammar Nazis as a network creature who cares with all the fibers of his soul for the correct spelling of words, punctuation marks and for the purity of his native speech in general. Many members of the Internet community perceive this "creature" as a fat troll who provokes disputes and abuse almost from scratch. It also generates "much ado about nothing".

On the cynical-humorous site "Lurke" Grammar Nazis are defined as national linguists, grammar Nazis, linguo-fascists, literate guardsmen. They are spoken of as aggressive literate people with innate literacy and a heightened sense of beauty. They get very annoyed when someone makes mistakes - spelling or grammar. They immediately rush to the attack, brandish dictionaries and refer to Gramota.ru.

Ruthlessness GN

The name of the community we are considering goes back to the word "Nazism", which is an allusion to the ruthlessness of its members. Sometimes Grammar Nazis use emblems that contain a large Latin letter "G", stylized as the flag of the III Reich. This emblem shows signs of imitation of the symbols of the Nazis, to which law enforcement agencies have repeatedly shown their reaction.

Among the Wikipedians there is also Grammar Nazi. They spend most of their time correcting errors in articles. The members of the Grammar Nazi are abbreviated as GN, or GN. If a GN follower himself makes a mistake, especially when he denounces the illiterate, one speaks of Grammmar Nazi fail (failure). It must be understood that when GBV are called to exterminate the illiterate, they do not mean the literal embodiment of the action they call. They either make a stern remark, or "turn on the ban."

This is how the linguist Krongauz M.A. writes about the most “severe” Grammar Nazis. According to him, the most radical of the literacy activists are people who neglect communicative interests. They are not engaged in a discussion of the stated topic, but analyze the interlocutor's mistakes made by him in writing. Their characteristic feature is the desire to correct the interlocutor, and not to communicate with him.

Objective Prerequisites

According to a certain part of Internet users, such a phenomenon as Grammar Nazi did not arise from scratch. Today, it is no secret to anyone that with the spread of the World Wide Web, a huge mass of people poured into it, whose literacy largely leaves much to be desired.

As a result, the level at which communication takes place, as they say, does not shine. Both in terms of ethics and in terms of literacy. Nevertheless, there is a circle of people who are well educated, highly intelligent, broad-minded, well-read and erudite.

In the most natural way, the manifestation of widespread ignorance, disrespect for the native language, and sometimes even flaunting such shortcomings, causes a feeling of indignation in some of them. And indeed, "it's a shame for the state."

Is there any benefit?

Is there any benefit from the representatives of this community? According to a number of netizens, it is obvious. By correcting other people's mistakes, they raise the level of literacy on the Internet. Other users express the opinion that there is nothing wrong with the fact that there are errors in the text. The main thing is to understand its essence.

To this, GN respond that the rules in the language do not exist for the sake of beauty, but precisely so that people understand each other. And if everyone writes as they want, then the result will not be a message to the interlocutor, but a “stream of consciousness”.

There is another argument against GN. Language is not a frozen substance, it develops, so making certain life adjustments to it, including in the direction of simplification, is quite acceptable. While the Grammar Nazis persist in their conservatism in vain.

In response to this, GN parry: the language within the life of one generation, as well as the rules existing in it, change very little, so that this could cause some obvious discrepancies. And all reasoning of this kind is from the evil one.

A huge minus is in the methods

If we consider the idea of ​​GN in a very generalized form, then everything, at first glance, does not seem to look so bad. The development of a culture of speech, love for the Russian language, cleaning out mistakes - all this can be called commendable.

However, despite the good intentions of the Grammar Nazis, the methods by which they achieve literacy are sometimes "beyond". This is trolling (bullying), insulting other participants, threats against them.

According to M. A. Krongauz, in practice, everything often comes down to painful poking at everyone who made a mistake. The "linguistic arrogance" displayed by Grammar Nazi is highly inflated and carries a destructive beginning. Pointing out the error is quite simple, but with the constructive it is much harder.

About some incidents

Let us cite cases of the attention that was shown by the authorities to the phenomenon we are describing.

• In Buryatia, in Ulan-Ude, an activist of the Young Guard movement M. Burdukovskaya was fined by the court for publishing the Grammar Nazi emblem on her VKontakte page in 2014. According to the court decision, she violated the ban on Nazi symbols in Russia.
• In 2015, the head of the Total Dictation Foundation, A. Pavlovsky, was summoned to the prosecutor's office of the Oktyabrsky district in Rostov-on-Don on the issue of possible financing of the Grammar Nazi foundation. This was explained by the fact that the prosecutors decided that it was a pro-Nazi movement.

In order to avoid misunderstandings, in conclusion, I would like to note that the phrase Kazak Grammar Nazi is not related to the concept that was considered in the article. This is the name of the program, within the framework of which in Kazakhstan, starting from 2017, there is a gradual transition to the romanization of the Kazakh language.

It is going through hard times: spelling, pronunciation rules and even the lexical meaning of many words are not known not only by children and people far from the cultural environment, but also by those who, it would seem, should understand all the subtleties and nuances of the rich Russian language: journalists, philologists and writers. The reasons were the following factors: firstly, it is undoubtedly a decline in the general cultural level, and secondly, of course, the Internet, which has taken over the function of the global media. Unlike traditional mass media, content on the Internet can be posted by any user, that is, there is no pre-selection, so not only empty, but also illiterate texts get into the network.

"A ray of light in a dark realm?"

Let's make a reservation: you should not think that all Internet content is a collection of illiterate nonsense. Professional journalists and writers work on the Web, cultured and educated people communicate. They are not the only ones worried about the fate of the Russian language: for several years now, the Grammar nazi movement has been active on the Internet (including social networks). Let's talk about it in more detail.

Grammar nazi - what is it?

The phrase "Grammar Nazis" is literally translated from English as "grammar Nazis". However, the word "Nazis" in this context should be understood somewhat differently. In this case, Nazism means intolerance towards those who often make mistakes in writing certain language structures, incorrectly punctuate and deny the importance of learning and preserving their native language. In a broad sense, Grammar nazi is a social movement for the purity of the language.

Grammar Nazis position themselves as a kind of universal cleaners of the Internet environment from illiteracy and philistine stupidity. They themselves placed this burden on themselves, because this social movement has neither a clear organization, nor a charter, nor a program. Moreover, anyone has the right to be called "Grammar Nazi". In this situation, many literally dishonor the honor of this organization, too aggressively proving their case, but at the same time making the simplest spelling mistakes. Some "inhabitants of the Internet" consider grammar Nazis to be too aggressive and too picky individuals who have nothing to do with themselves in real life. Agree, the Nazis and their comparison with the Nazis and "holy warriors" are repulsive

What do Grammar Nazis do?

Grammar Nazis do not have a clear structure and responsibilities, so everyone who considers themselves as such simply sits in "public" places on the Internet (popular social networks, forums, online games) and makes comments to everyone about their knowledge of spelling, which delivers terrible discomfort to visitors and administration of the resource. Often "Nazis" end up with a blocked account - the result of their "heroic" linguistic activity.

Organization Grammar nazi

However, there are also more organized groups of grammar Nazis, in which duties are clearly divided. Their representatives monitor certain sites, sometimes help the administration of small resources to monitor content, “clean up” frankly delusional comments in time, that is, they act as editors. This is especially common in Yes, yes, do not be surprised, the grammar of the Nazis is not a purely Russian "exclusive": initially the movement was completely international, and then its cells were divided into countries.

It should be noted that they also pay attention not only to spelling: for Grammar nazi, commas play an important role. Such a position often leads to outright aggression in the dialogue, because the placement of commas in the same sentence can be different, and the arguing parties in a heated state cannot understand this.

Grammar Nazi: pros and cons

Since we are talking about such an interesting social movement, let's look at its pros and cons.

Of the pluses, it can be noted that, after all, people who consider themselves to be "grammatical Nazis" do not so much know their native language perfectly, but rather try to preserve its purity and originality. They want people to remember their roots, respect culture and not lose their national identity.

On the other hand, all of the above can be attributed exclusively to the inspirers of the movement and in no way to its ordinary members, who cannot be fully called members. Usually they simply behave too aggressively, they do not take into account the opinions of others at all, and their main goal is some kind of self-assertion due to this. That is why Grammar Nazis are so prejudiced against Internet users, and because of individual representatives, the entire movement suffers.

Thanks to our article, we found out who the grammar Nazis are, what they do and how they carry their ideology to the masses, but it's up to you to decide whether it's good or evil.

If we take the idea of ​​“grammar-Nazism” in an extremely generalized form, then everything looks good: we need to develop a culture of speech, love the Russian language, clean out mistakes from it and rejoice in the fact that we have a great, powerful, truthful and free with a rich history. In practice, everything comes down to particulars, namely to the liver of every mistaken person. The destructive beginning of any professional "linguistic arrogance" (in the words of Maxim Krongauz) is very great, because it is easier to point out a mistake if you spotted it. But constructive, alas, almost none.

On the other hand, what can be constructive in this area, what can one ordinary person do? Create free education courses? No one will go to them except for those who are already well versed in the Russian language and want to either bring it to perfection, or once again amuse their pride in their own impeccable knowledge.

Of the good moments, one can note movements like "Secret Spelling Police" who, from scourging colleagues and pen pals, switched to quite specific and useful actions.

They seek out and correct errors in public texts - on signboards, monuments, tablets, thereby preventing even greater linguistic connivance from spreading.

The grass used to be greener

Each generation is sure that the young people who follow them are much less literate and knowledgeable. This was complained about thousands of years ago, nothing has changed now. You can even feel like a hero of pseudo-Nolan's linguistic "Beginning". Here is a good modern linguist Maxim Krongauz, who complains that the Russian language has now become smaller, and points to the brilliant work of Korney Chukovsky “Alive like life”. In this work, Korney Chukovsky complains that in 1961 the language became completely smaller and quotes the best linguists of the late 19th century.

What linguists wrote at that time is not difficult to guess: yes, the language has completely become smaller, if such disgrace continues, then Russian-speaking people will degrade and will be explained by gestures and blows with a club.

Indeed, the language changes over time, but the real progress in it is almost invisible to the unprofessional eye. You can read about such tiny finds, which we ourselves would never have thought of, in Irina Levontina's book “What is it about” (“Russian with a dictionary” is a little more interesting, but there is a slightly different topic). For example, we missed how the new meanings of the words “effective” (now you can say this about a person) and “adequate” (a positive connotation appeared), how the word “ambitious” lost its negative meaning. Times are changing, the world is changing - and the language reflects this, but quietly and in halftones.

Grammar Nazis and other overly active champions of the purity of speech notice more and more bright, what is in plain sight, that is, slang. At the same time, youth slang is the most short-lived thing that will quickly leave the language, only one word out of a hundred will remain in memory.

Try to read examples of how dudes or hippies spoke slang. If you insert this into speech now, it will come out artificially and strained, like jokes in Yeralash about young old men.

In a couple of decades, no one will remember all these little things, they will remain in the archives, like annual rings, by which it will be possible to recognize the era.

As for the egregious mistakes that make even the most tolerant person bleed from the eyes, there is little to correct. It is necessary from the very beginning to learn correctly, to develop "innate literacy", which is not innate, but always acquired. Mostly reading books. Now they are reading more and more copy-paste on the Internet, which are not always proofread, therefore the general level of people with “innate literacy” is falling. Only reforms at the level of general education will help here.

In addition, do not forget about optical illusions.

You go on the Internet and see that only illiterate teenagers live in the country and users of Odnoklassniki, who are equally dubious from a linguistic point of view, are of a fair age. But it is not the quality of education that has changed, but the mode of access to information resources.

Previously, all these categories of semi-literate citizens could not be published to a wide audience, no one saw their writings, if there was any at all. At best, schoolchildren kept a diary in a common notebook, and then a dozen years later they re-read it with surprise - how, did I really write so badly, like a literate person! Now on the Internet, which remembers everything, anyone can write, which is why it seems that there are more errors and the overall level of literacy is falling.

Three pillars of reliability

There are three sacred strongholds of Grammar Nazis: Zaliznyak, Rosenthal and Gramota.ru. A simple test for those who consider themselves an expert in linguistics: 1) remember the name of Zaliznyak; 2) remember the name of Rosenthal and how this name-patronymic is written; 3) Guess how the experts of the most competent organization in terms of the Russian language speak of Grammar Nazis.

Correct answers: 1) Andrey Anatolyevich; 2) Ditmar Elyashevich; 3) “For the Grammar Nazis, language is divided into black and white, right or wrong. But this is not the case in language.

There are so many transitions, so many options: from less desirable to more desirable, this is preferable, this is acceptable, and this is also possible, and this is not very desirable, but in common parlance it seems to be not scary.

Etc. That is, there is no such thing in the language to be able to divide. And grammatical Nazism, like any Nazism, it divides into those who are with us and those who are against us ”(from any interview, for example, given by Ksenia Turkova, who herself recently released the book“ Russian Without Load ”with excellent advice and the unread first edition, from which the grammar-Nazis wheezed and beat with their hooves).

Language is a living organism that breathes and develops. What was the norm before, gradually dissolves and leaves.

If you read the books of linguists of the 60s, for example, Boris Golovin, you can notice two trends. First: half of the mistakes are eternal.

In the middle of the last century, there were still problems with the stress in the word “more beautiful” and “ringing”, they still confused one and two “n” and the endings “-tsya” and “-tsya”. Second: exactly half of the mistakes will sink into oblivion.

For example, Golovin gets angry at the newfangled word “cinema” and sternly asks why people did not like the beautiful word “movie picture” or “cinema”? Why spoil the reduction? As they say, what will you do with the abyss of free time?

The weakest link

The Achilles' heel of grammar-Nazism as a phenomenon is the fragility of its foundations. Today you denounce the losers in righteous anger, and tomorrow you accidentally put a comma in front of the wrong word and ended up at the pillory yourself. In addition, the most violent speeches can be heard from people who are far from professional knowledge. Proofreaders are silent in a rag and do not poke anyone in the nose with their professional suitability. But those who have memorized a couple of triggers and breaks down on them themselves cause a lot of irritation.

The aggression of usually calm people is difficult to understand - fragile young virgins, who in life will not offend a mosquito, suddenly demand to quarter those who just do not remember some information about the spelling of words. Internet users are constantly collecting “hit lists” of words and expressions, where, in addition to really eye-catching jambs, common mistakes also fall. Tell me, do you want to correct a person if he suddenly says “ringing” with an emphasis on “o” in front of you? And if the word “drills” (hello, neighbor with a drill!) with an emphasis on “e” or “turns on” on “u”? Meanwhile, this is the same mistake, in both words you need to emphasize the ending. But “ringing” became the star of the execution lists, and the rest of the verbs did not receive such an honor.

Internet etiquette

What should you do if you see a monstrous mistake somewhere in a blog, post, comment or other Internet space? First of all, congratulate yourself, you are well done and attentive. This is really good quality. You can even poke your finger at the screen and snort smugly if no one is around. Internet etiquette does not apply to your behavior in front of the screen. You can read all the materials of The Knife even in shorts (or even without them!) - and none of our editorial staff will say a word to you until you start sending photos.

But do not immediately expose the fools in a caustic letter. If the blood has already rushed to your head and the ashes of Ozhegov have pounded into your heart, think about the following probabilities:

The author is not a fool, he simply does not care about these rules, because he does not consider them important. Someone does not consider it important to iron their clothes or washes their hair three times less than, in your opinion, they should, and someone draws caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

People have made rules for themselves, and people tend to break them. Until these rules become laws, the fight against violators is as effective as writing a philosophical treatise with a finger on the surface of a river.

The author is not as literate as you, but he understands other things better than you. Imagine: you wittily expressed your “fe” to him for systematic neglect of the rules of syntax, and he took and cracked your password, which consisted of the year of your birth and the name of your girlfriend. And who is the idiot now?

The co-authors of the text on your favorite niche site proofread it badly because they don't have the budget for a proofreader, and the editor's choice was between "hire a proofreader" or "pay for hosting and issue royalties." An armchair perfectionist-consumer can babble with a complete sense of his own rightness, and an editor, exhausted by the struggle for the survival of his beloved offspring, at least in some form, can go berserk and ban the impudent one. No one will be better.

If a blunder disgraces a major publication or the site of your favorite brand, write about it in neutral tones at the contacts indicated for communication. Most likely, you will be thanked, and in this case you will do a good deed. If you behave like the worst of the Grammar Nazis and start publicly scourging the author with screenshots attached, be prepared for the fact that you may be asked to take the three fastest black horses and ride them to the bathhouse or worse. Because aggression, according to the laws of society, almost always gives rise to only aggression, even when it is masked by good intentions.

It's always good to remember that everything passes - and this too shall pass. Before, the word “sausage” meant “loitering about”, but who remembers this meaning now? It is possible that no one will remember the mistakes that are now triggering the linguistic regime of the berserker in fifty years. As well as about the exploits of the nameless Grammar Nazis.

Here is such an unsightly title I decided to choose for my next material. Our time moves forward, and with its course, many things change. The language in which we all speak is also changing, discussions around it do not subside. Not only here, but also abroad. Moreover, in the West, these discussions are often Russophobic in nature.
In Ukraine (that's how it is correct to say from the point of view of the language norm) there has been a war going on for a long time, including for the language. The deputies of the Verkhovna Zrada (there is no other name for the Ukrainian Parliament) are already declaring from the stands that the Russian language is the northern dialect of Ukrainian. In the Baltic States (namely, in Latvia), a referendum was recently held to give Russian the status of a second state language. As soon as the results showed that the majority voted "yes", the counting of votes stopped long before the last ballot was checked, and its results were simply canceled.

Yes, and our "g" ramatei "are also not averse to plopping ** scrap in shit and picking up neo-liberal tendencies and chants, coupled with libertinist spirits. One or two - and tomorrow you are already a monkey like Obama-Untermensch and his masters. Even Hitler said that "Slavs must be reduced to sign language". No matter how contradictory it may sound, it is not the Slavs, but the Americans who are more suitable for the role of the victim. That is, the concept of "American / Pindos / Yankees" today would be more logical to be considered a synonym for the concept of "Untermensch / unmensh", because the USA is the "society" of subhumans / nonhumans, regardless of what position they occupy in their "society", whether it be a homeless person, an average statist, an Illuminati globalist, the president of the country, personnel and heads of special services, the Pentagon , the police, the judiciary, the State Department, transoceanic corporations - in general, the list can be continued further, but we will not. And all because English, as the official language of the United States, has no legal force. In America, they even once tried to a referendum for giving the language legal force, but this issue was not resolved due to heated contradictions. As a result, he is still in the air, and the so-called. "US state" continues to pursue its policy of global genocide (including language).

When society begins to realize that its language may disappear, groups of activists appear in its layers, which can be called "linguistic soil" or Grammar Nazis, whose goal is to fight for the spelling of their native language. They are also called linguistic extremists / -fascists / -Nazis because of the symbols used on the Internet. Today I consider it necessary to tell you about this phenomenon, which today has become an integral part of our life and which has been gaining momentum for a long time. Of course, this material can cause a violent reaction from the liberal Bandera prosecutors, who in Russia can be counted on the fingers - in fact, the entire judicial system of the Russian Federation is literally teeming with these Justinderites in uniform. What, little brothers, didn’t you like the stigmas I invented against you? That's the same, you will know how to turn fighters for justice, including linguistic justice, into milk cows, on which you can start cases with impunity and rip off fines for the sole purpose of your own profit. You will not die of hunger, and if you do, then these are your problems, and not third-party third parties, and there is nothing to roll a barrel on those who defend their (and our common) native language. This material is equivalent in its own way to several information "yellowstones" (as I decided to name the new unit of information (Ylst - Ylst) by analogy with the name of the largest supervolcano on our planet) and aims not only to protect those who are today called Grammar Nazis , but more than that - is an independent investigation and criminal case against our judges and prosecutors. There is a proverb: "do not judge, and you will not be judged," but there is also a worthy answer to it, which I will paraphrase: "when justice becomes criminal, the right to be a judge belongs to every citizen." I am sure that most of you fully agree with this formulation and will express their solidarity and understanding with me.

Why did I decide to take on this challenge and personally act as a language judge? Remembering my student years, I remember what my thesis was devoted to. It was called "Language policy of Austria". In general, I was lucky that before me in foreign language at the university (I will not name it), where I studied, no work on Austria was written at all. The faculty will turn 75 next year, and yet I am grateful to fate for giving me such a chance to become an Austrian pioneer (here, of course, I am being ironic). It was then that I began to develop the extreme right-wing conservative beliefs that I hold true to today. Because of this, many classmates (as you know, most of the students in English are girls) even turned their backs on me, but in principle I still don’t regret it at all, since there were those from the same philological faculty who supported me.

Okay, looks like I'm too late with the intro. Well, then I will move on to the topic of the material.

Grammar Nazis: who are they and how did they appear?

As we know from history, after the end of World War II, Europe lay in ruins and was restored mainly with US money. There was a so-called. "Marshall Plan", named after the American military leader J.K. Marshall, according to which funds were sent to rebuild war-torn Europe. America practically did not suffer from the war, because it conducted military operations in foreign territory and in the Pacific Ocean. The Eastern European part of the then USSR suffered greatly, but the leaders of the Soviet Union decided not to join the enslavement and began to restore the destroyed regions of the country on their own without external help. And if the "Dawes Plan", adopted after the First World War, was just a warm-up, then the "Marshall Plan" provided for the appearance on the map of new economic and political blocs and bodies, known today as the European Union, the European Economic Community, the OSCE, PACE and NATO under the auspices of USA. Later, the USSR will create its own blocs - the Department of Internal Affairs and the CMEA. It is worth noting that the CMEA was founded before NATO, but this will be discussed in the following materials.
Taking advantage of the fact that Europe is being restored with their money, the US decided to take it "under guardianship." And this meant that American realities began to penetrate into the life and life of the average European. It also affected the language. For example, in the same German, their English-language counterparts appeared, for example. r Computer=r Rechner, r Mobiltelefon=s Handy, s Radio=r Rundfunk, joggen=dauerlaufen etc. The French language also got it, although let's not forget that in English there are a lot of borrowings from French. The Americanization of the titular language began.

Many will ask: where do French borrowings come from in English? Yes, everything is simple: long before the US appeared on the world map, the main dispute for supremacy in Europe was between England (Great Britain), the mistress of the seas in Europe, and France, the largest geopolitical European unit. Sometimes even had to involve Germany. There was a time when the dominant language in Europe was French, which was used in the speech of the English, but from the beginning of the 15th century. English began to replace French and became the dominant language of the world. As they say, the Britons returned the favor to the French. Since then, it has become customary that these 3 languages ​​(English, German and French) have become the main ones in the study of foreign languages ​​at universities. Today, the study of Chinese is gaining popularity (almost 1.5 billion speakers), Spanish is also in vogue (and this is not only Spain, but almost all of Latin America with the exception of Brazil; the official language is Portuguese), which is studied in the USA as a second foreign language.

All this led to the fact that the linguistic norm of the native language began to suffer, in particular, the expression "author zhzhot" gained particular popularity. There was no time for laughter, and that's when they appeared - Grammar Nazis.

Of course, in reality they are not the same as shown in the photo and do not carry machine guns in their hands with bandages on their elbows. The symbol of modern "linguo-fascists" is the Latin letter G stylized as a swastika on a white circle against a red frame. All of you have certainly seen the flag of the Third Reich, and as for the letter itself, it is somewhat reminiscent of the logo of the famous Greek party "Golden Dawn" (self-name "Chrisi Avgi"), which adheres not only to extreme right and fascist views, but also to radical Euroscepticism . And SYRIZA (extremely left; National Bolsheviks, as we would say) are rather flowers in comparison with them. Recently, the leader of the Golden Dawn, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, came to Russia for a rally in support of our country in Ukraine. The party, by the way, opposed Ukropov's "Right Sector" and harshly criticized his actions in the Donbass.

"Chrisi Avgi" logo

But back to the subject of our conversation. The term "grammar Nazi" arose in the early 1990s in English in a number of such entities as feminazi ("feminazi"), gym Nazi (Nazi from the gym), stroller Nazi (Nazi with strollers), breastfeeding Nazi (Nazi from breastfeeding), etc.; became an international Internet meme, penetrated into the Russian language at the end of the 20th century.

Here is what the Sevastopol newspaper writes about this in its article "The Battle for Grammar" (http://sevastopol.press/2013/09/08/bitva-za-grammatiku/):
"Grammar Nazis (linguo-fascists, Grammar Nazi) have nothing to do with the Third Reich, they are just people who write correctly and correct the mistakes of others on the Internet. Some consider them to be people who find fault with mistakes in the texts and speech of their interlocutors. In fact, representatives of the Grammar Nazis are fighting for literacy and purity of the language. They do not need to specifically look for errors, because they themselves hurt the eyes and act on the Grammar Nazis like a red rag on a bull. And illiteracy on the Internet is at every turn, because it was flooded slovenly schoolchildren and half-educated students who do not know anything about respect for their native language.

Prince Pyotr Vyazemsky is credited with a quote that “Pushkin took an insult to the Russian language for an insult inflicted on him personally.” By the same principle, grammatical Nazis are hurt to the core by the illiteracy of others.

Stylization under the banner of the Serbian Chetniks. Those had "With faith with God. Sloboda or death"

Grammar Nazis cannot calmly pass by if they come across “I like”, “I want”, “slipped”, “lay down”, “put on a coat” and similar illiterate expressions. Hearing the word “ringing” in a conversation with an emphasis on the first syllable, he will not miss the opportunity to correct the interlocutor. Linguafascists correct mistakes and make remarks competently, in a strict but aggressive form, with secret hatred or at least a sense of superiority over the opponent. For example, calling him an illiterate cattle. This behavior is called "grammar Nazis resent."

Often in Internet communities and social networks, conflicts arise on this basis. An illiterate person, in response to mockery, as a rule, tries to justify himself. Like, "what's the difference as it is written, the main thing was that it was panyatna." In response to such a remark, Grammar Nazis may wish the interlocutor to burn in hellfire or report their desire to commit violent acts against an individual who does not respect the Russian language using a spelling dictionary.

Grammar Nazis have their own hierarchy, parodically organized along the lines of SS ranks. From the Grammar Youth junior high school student to the Grammar Fuhrer, who is Ditmar Elyashevich Rosenthal, a professor, Soviet and Russian linguist, author of numerous works on the Russian language. Grammar Nazis repeat that he will punish everyone who distorted and did not respect the Russian language.

There is a topic on the Sevastopol forum that is loved by grammatical Nazis and just literate people - it collects and ridicules the illiterate statements of members of the forum. In addition to the mistakes that are typical for illiterate Russian-speaking people, regardless of their place of residence, the toponyms of Sevastopol are often used with gross errors. For example, you can often find the streets "Rudnevo", "Yumashevo", "Steponyan", "Tolstov", "Kalipishchenko", "Vakalyunchik" and also the mysterious "Ostryakovo". The list of such toponyms is collected on the Sevastopol portal.

Grammar Nazis are well-read, literate, intellectual people with a good outlook, many of them graduated from the Faculty of Philology.

Some consider grammarnazism to be abnormal behavior and even a mental disorder due to complexes and childhood insults, since its supporters are ready to hate a person because of a mistake. Others are sure that correcting mistakes in other people's texts is just a way to assert themselves. But such a zealous position in upholding linguistic norms and rules can be explained by extreme intolerance for illiteracy and nothing more. And the creation of the Grammar Nazi community is a kind of humor and a desire to belong to a community of literate people."

Here are some of the most common mistakes:
1. Feel free to kill the conductors who say "PAY THE FARE"! You can either "pay the fare" or "pay the fare"!
2. In Russian, the word "LIE" DOES NOT EXIST! With prefixes - please: Put, Lay, Shift.
3. Are you still "calling"? Then we go to you! Educated people say: “Vasya is calling you”, “you will call your mother”.

4. As you know, there are two troubles in Russia: “-TSYA” and “-TSYA”. So why not fix them back in fifth grade? Ask a question to the verb: “What does it do?” or "What to do?" If there is “b” in the question, then there is “b” in the verb, if not, there is NO in the verb either!

5. There are no words "in general" and "in general"! There are words "IN GENERAL" and "IN GENERAL". And point.

6. For writing "sorry" instead of "sorry" it's time to introduce fines.

7. How can you shove the letter “U” into the word “future” to get “future”? Those who suffer from the mania of stuffing extra letters should be beaten with a spelling dictionary and repeated: “I will” - “future”, “follow” - “next”.

8. How much can you doubt: "come" or "come"? Remember once and for all, correctly - "COME". BUT in the future: I WILL COME, COME, COME.

9. Ordered an espresso? To cook faster? The coffee is called ESPRESSO! And there is also "latte" (emphasis on "A", two "T") and "capu Chino" (one "H").

10. Congratulations on (what?) Birthday (what?)! I'm going (where?) On the day (of what?) of my birthday! Was on a birthday party. No “going to my birthday”, “congratulations, happy birthday” and similar heresy!
11. Girls, if a guy writes “pretty girl” and “looks good”, put a fat cross on him! Why are you so literate?!
12. Keep in mind that "TO HAVE IN_VIEW" is written separately!
13. Everyone who still says "THIS" will burn in hell!

Recently, the famous linguist Maxim Krongauz published the book "Albanian Tutorial". He later gave 2 interviews about this

Maxim Krongauz

“A huge mass of girls came to the Internet”(Interview with Gazeta.ru)
Maxim Krongauz told Gazeta.Ru about his book Albany's Self-Teacher, nyashes, mi-mi-mi and pichalka that happens to the Russian language thanks to blogs, social networks and the network as a whole.

Albany's Self-Teacher has been released - a new book by the famous linguist Maxim Krongauz, dedicated to the adventures of the modern Russian language on the Internet. The author told Gazeta.Ru about how to detect a bureaucrat in the network, how politics affects the language, and why it is not a shame to write illiterate today.

- By "Albanian language" you mean the language spoken in Runet. Are linguistic and communication trends moving from the Internet space to everyday Russian?

- The language spoken on the Internet has ceased to be jargon, it has become a style. Of course, it continues to be a kind of club for the initiated, but these boundaries are now very blurred. Therefore, I believe that the "Albanian language" is the language of more than one culture, as was the case with the "language of bastards", it is the language in which we all write when we enter the Internet. Moreover, this language has begun to influence the way we write and speak offline. For example, I heard students pronounce the word "preved", emphasizing the fact that this is an Internet greeting. Today I see how the media are actively using techniques and signs born on the Internet: emoticons, words such as “pichalka” and others.

- In your book, you draw attention to the fact that today it is not a shame to write illiterately. Why?

— With the advent of the Internet, huge masses of people who had never written before were attracted to writing. Previously, journalists and writers wrote, they were checked by editors and proofreaders. An ordinary person, except for a report on work and a memo, did not need to write anything. Today, not only huge masses are attracted to writing, but also the result of their activity immediately becomes public. The Soviet school developed in all of us, literate and illiterate, the shame of making mistakes - one could only make mistakes on the fence. It is impossible to maintain this psychological barrier and fully communicate. Internet communication is live communication, fast and intense. The question stood like this - either be ashamed and not communicate, or communicate and not be ashamed. Moreover, the "bastards" helped to overcome this shame in a simple way - they turned illiteracy into a game. This “blurring” made it even easier to let go of shame.

- You represent the "language of bastards" and the fashion for literacy, represented by the "grammar Nazi" subculture, as two opposite phenomena. Is it possible to say that the "grammar Nazis" simply replaced the "bastards"? And now it is fashionable to be literate, not illiterate?

- Illiteracy denies the rules and emphatically neglects them. Grammar Nazi is the opposite trend, which is at the other extreme. These are people who fight against both illiteracy and illiteracy. Moreover, they fight so fiercely that they got this not too pleasant name, which some of them are now quite proud of. It cannot be said that the “grammar Nazis” have replaced the “bastards”. The fashion for the "language of bastards" has passed, but there are other violations that "grammar-Nazis" rush to.
- What, for example?

- One of the important cultural paradigms that has come to replace the "bastards" is the "new sentimentality". A sort of girly, "vanilla", "nyashechki" who pushed aside the "bastards" with their weak shoulders. Today we often hear such words as "nyashka", "mimimi", "pichalka". People who are not part of this girlish culture repeat them with pleasure. First with irony, as if quoting. However, now these words are used by everyone, even the media.

- Where do you think this craving for lisping on the Internet came from?

- Mass girl culture plays a huge role not only in our society. There are special languages, for example, the language of fakats, the language of the diaries of Israeli girls. Girls came to the Internet quite late. First the intellectuals came, then the "hooligans" came, and then a huge mass of girls came. Different social and cultural groups are entering the Internet gradually. For example, quite recently officials came to the Internet. By the way, it’s rather clumsy: they are constantly mocked, because the language betrays the official even on the Internet.

- You write that a huge number of new words and set phrases have appeared in the blogosphere as a cliché commentary. How relevant is this genre in the era of likes?

- Like is also a cliché, only mechanical. If earlier I could choose from 5-10 positive ratings and two dozen negative ones - write “atstoy” or “author zhzhot”, today we see that even in the blogosphere itself, completely mechanical things have appeared. If I have absolutely nothing to say, I choose a cliché. For example, "+1". This cliché from the blogosphere has been taken advantage of by Google and turned into a button (meaning the Google Plus social network button), which is quite reasonable, because it means supporting the statement itself. Facebook invented likes, and they really became very important in our lives. In Russian, in addition to the word "like", its derivatives appeared - "like", "like", "unlike". Like became a measure of social success, likes began to be measured. We see that people need to have a certain cliché to participate in the dialogue, because many people have nothing to say, but want to say it. Modern communication constantly draws us in. If we remain silent, then we behave incorrectly, correctly - we react all the time, enter into a dialogue. Here we are helped by stable phrases, and even easier - likes.

- Can we say that there is a simplification of communication?

- This is not a simplification, but an emergency communicative help. Previously, a person could read the text and not say anything, he was not required to make comments. Today commenting, reaction to the text is one of the most important communicative phenomena. A lazy reader can simply instruct likes and be satisfied. Clichés help us to fill in the voids, and we have to fill them, because we are all involved in communication.

- In your book, you proceed from the fact that the text has become the core of communication, since even oral communication has turned into a written format. How does this relate to the opinion that the main component of communication in modern culture has become a picture?

— I agree with this opinion, however, as a linguist, it was more interesting for me to study the textual component of communication. Now we see complex art, covering text, picture, and audio. The modern text is not only verbal, it is diverse, consists of many components. Demotivators and similar things are gradually going out of fashion, but something else is coming to replace them. For example, “postcards” are pictures with small text. There is a constant search for something new, including in the field of combining image and text.

- You draw parallels, albeit conditional, between historical events and shifts in language: the emergence of “zaumi” with the revolution; the emergence of a new Internet subculture, such as “bastards”, with the collapse of the USSR. To what extent do the political events of recent years, such as the protest movement, influence the language?

- If we are talking about the protest movement, then we can talk about the extraordinary creative power of language. New phrases and words are being invented all the time. In this regard, we can recall the period of the February Revolution of 1917: then the language also realized its creative potential. I quoted an example from the book by Sergei Osipovich Kartsevsky - the name of the KVD party, which stands for "where the wind blows." This is very similar to what is happening on the Internet today. Although in fact such abbreviations are not very characteristic of the Russian language. The Russian language during the First World War was greatly influenced by the use of telegraph communication. Abbreviations appeared, which were imposed by the conditions of communication. Roughly the same thing is happening today, but restrictions are imposed on us by Twitter, SMS.

— Computers and all kinds of gadgets force us to type, hence the dominance of written speech over oral speech. What will happen to the existing written culture if in the future it will be more convenient to control all these gadgets by voice? What if oral speech tries to regain its format?

— Until quite recently, it was impossible to imagine that the written form would become so important for us. After all, in fact, for the last ten years, the written form has been replacing the oral form in many areas. The sphere of dialogue is the sphere of oral speech, but today it is more convenient for people to exchange SMS than to talk to each other. Therefore, I think that the written language is no longer so easy to push back, we are used to it. After all, even the main device for ordinary oral communication, the telephone, is now more often used specifically for written communication. The world has turned upside down. I don't think he'll be back on his feet anytime soon.

- You pay attention to "intimate publicity" in your book. Every day we see news that someone has been fired because of a controversial post or indecent photo on Facebook. How quickly do you think people will learn to distinguish between private and public spaces on the Internet?

- I gave a completely anecdotal example in the book: gangsters describe in detail their crimes on the Internet, for some reason believing that the police will not read them. However, this happens regularly. The craving for communication, for chatter is stronger than the sense of danger. A person simply cannot resist saying something nasty about his boss. Over time, people will learn to distinguish between private and public spaces, but they still won’t stop chatting from this.

"Afftara to the wall"(WG interview)
In the language of linguists describing the Russian language of the Internet, a new term has appeared - "Grammar-Nazi".

This is the name of a very aggressive community of admirers of the "great and mighty" with innate literacy. Who are linguo-extremists and from whom do they protect their native language? Maxim Krongauz, director of the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian State Humanitarian University, who has just published a new book, Albany's Self-Teacher, answers these questions of "RG".

- If we talk about a fresh cut of the speech of the Internet, then it is probably too late to learn "Albanian". All these "Preved, bear!", you see, are in the past ...

Maxim Krongauz: It is important for you to catch the phenomenon at the peak of its popularity. And to me - when it is already clear what it means. Today we understand much more than in 2006-2007, when "author zhzhot" was in vogue. Secondly, by "Albanian" I did not mean the "language of bastards", not the language of some subculture, but the specific features of the Russian language on the Internet. They are alive and will continue to exist, because there are linguistic mechanisms that give rise to these phenomena.

- And where did this strange word - "Albany" come from?

Maxim Krongauz: It first appeared in 2004 in the usual spelling - "Albanian" and meant only "a rare, unknown language." When a certain English-speaking blogger Scottishtiger arrogantly asked what kind of language the Russian-language captions for the photos he liked were made in, he was answered: "Albanian". The complacency of the American caused fury in the blogosphere. A flash mob "Lessons of Albanian Russian" was immediately organized. There were comments on the Scottishtiger blog suggesting "learn Albanian". Now this indicates the incompetence and snobbery of the interlocutor. By the way, when, before the release of the new album, Madonna posted an appeal to her Russian fans on her blog, made with the help of an automatic translation program, Russian bloggers announced the campaign "Let's teach Madonna to write in Albanian!"

What terrible thing did she write?

Maxim Krongauz: Well, here's a little excerpt: "For my Russian fans (fans). I want to personally welcome you to my blog ... Don't forget to buy my new album confessions for dancing ..." (For those who did not understand, the singer turned to her fans , reminds them not to forget to buy her new album "Confession on the Dance Floor".

- If "bastards" are not in fashion, then who is now at the forefront of style?

Maxim Krongauz: You are right, if someone continues these games in the "hellish soton", then it is hopelessly outdated. Outdated not in the sense of age - very often new phenomena on the Internet are carried out by people who are not at all young. Here the question is what today is called creativity, creative ability. Those who still communicate in the language of "bastards" look provincial, on the periphery of the language fashion. And in the center - a different culture. I would call it new sentimentality. Girly lisping is typical not only for Runet, it is a global trend. A lot of girls have come to the Net who speak "girlishly": hence these cute little words, such as "sadness", "vanilla", endless diminutive suffixes, some kind of interjections like "mimimi" - a reaction to something cute, fluffy, the highest degree of tenderness. The apotheosis of slang - the word "nyashka" or "nyashka" - just something from which you experience this very tenderness. It comes from the subculture of Japanese cartoon fans. But at the same time it looks great in Russian. It seems that it consists of some caressing Russian suffixes - the quintessence of sentimentality.

- The semantic field of "sadness" is clear: "Summer is coming to an end. Sadness!" and a sad smiley. What does "vanilla" mean?

Maxim Krongauz: Vanilla is a subculture. Girls are romantic, they love clothes in soft vanilla tones, smoke sitting on the windowsill, drink coffee. They have thin waists and necks, and they often experience "sadness".

- The flowering of new sentimentality is connected with glamor?

Maxim Krongauz: If the "bastards", expressing the time, rebelled against everything in the world: politics, economic processes in the country, culture, even against the rules of spelling, no matter how ridiculous it sounds, then the current fashionistas are absolutely glamorous. They do not rebel, but, imitating movie and cartoon characters, create their own ideal world in which they will hide.

- If we draw linguistic and social parallels, then the appearance of Grammar Nazis looks quite natural ...

Maxim Krongauz: There have always been fighters for literacy. It is strange that the current ones have accepted this impartial title: "Grammar Nazi". Judging by the social networks where you can meet linguistic extremists (VKontakte and Twitter), they unite according to the rule: it is more important to correct the interlocutor, to point out a mistake, than to listen to what he says. Grammar Nazis do not care about everyone speaking and writing without errors, but above all they simply want to climb to a higher rung on a certain social ladder that is established with the help of language. Their main complaint is that they destroy communication. By the way, Grammar Nazis themselves make a lot of mistakes, but they find fault with some standard irregularities, for example, the presence or absence of a soft sign in verbs ending in -tsya, -tsya. They are not interested in the essence of the dispute. Humorous notes about Grammar Nazis have already appeared on the Internet. One such story tells how they beat a Russian nationalist for illiterately writing on the wall of the European shopping center: "Russia for Russians." “Here three healthy guys ran up to me, started beating me and yelling: “Why is Russia with a lowercase, where is the dash, imbecile?” - said the 20-year-old victim. The attackers turned out to be graduates of the philological faculty. beaten, distinguished," they joked philologically.

- And yet a decent person can be illiterate?

Maxim Krongauz: In different periods of modern Russian history, this question was answered differently. For example, in the 90s in society (I'm not talking about the circle of university teachers) it was considered indecent to earn little. But writing illiterately or speaking is a personal matter for everyone. If someone corrected someone, they could blame him for being impolite. Like, in a person there are a lot of other qualities, except for literacy. Now a good Russian has again entered the "gentleman's set". Trainings for company employees have become popular, although the result is sometimes anecdotal. Somehow I call the online store. I'm going to pay for groceries using my wife's card. First question: "What is the name of the cardholder?" I call my wife's name. The next question is: "Maria, what do you want to order?" My voice is far from feminine... The young man on the other end of the wire was taught the algorithm of actions: first find out the name of the cardholder, then address him by name... However, the very fact that such trainings are held suggests that good speech becomes in certain mandatory areas.

However, it is worth recognizing that GN live and breed among us. This was stated in an interview by Vladimir Pakhomov. I present to you his opinion:

"Grammar Nazis live, thrive and multiply"
- What questions did Gramota.ru users ask in the past year? What were you interested in?

It often happens that questions are related to what is happening around. And this year too, of course. Yes, there were many standard, ordinary questions about commas, about the declension of surnames, about the origin of words. But so many of the questions reflected what was happening outside the language. Again there was a peak of questions “to Ukraine or to Ukraine?”. This year, questions were added to them: “In the Donbass or in the Donbass?”

Or, for example, how to write the combination "Donetsk people's republic" and "Luhansk people's republic"? What is the rule to arrange them? What are the official names of the states? What are the names of the organizations? Which letters are uppercase, which are lowercase, are quotes needed?

It seems to me that this question is quite difficult to answer, given that even Russia itself has not officially recognized these entities as states.

Yes, it's really hard to answer. It would seem that there is a similar example - the Polish People's Republic. But this is the official name of the state that existed in a certain historical period. And all three capital letters are needed there - no one argues with that.

And here, firstly, there is no dictionary fixation. Secondly, it is not clear from the point of view of law. In addition, it is clear that the choice of spelling will necessarily reflect the attitude of a native speaker to these phenomena.

One will write every word in capital letters, thus emphasizing that this is an independent state. The other will enclose it in quotation marks. And he will not use any capital letters, and thereby also express his attitude.

What did you answer to this question?

You mentioned the sacramental question “in Ukraine or in Ukraine”. I noticed that no matter how much you answer it, everyone still continues to swear and argue. Is there any way I can answer this to end this debate?

I think it's impossible. We answer constantly, throughout all 15 years of existence of the portal, this question. And they still keep asking! We answer that it is correct “in Ukraine”, this corresponds to the norms of the Russian language. At the same time, we are well aware that on the territory of Ukraine itself, the option “in Ukraine” is used in order not to offend anyone.

At one time it seemed to me that in Russia the option “in Ukraine” would win…

There was such a period, but now I noticed the opposite. The media began to use the preposition “on” emphatically. He gained popularity even among those who used to say "in".

What else were you asking about? Interested in Ebola?

Oh sure. And there were also a lot of questions about "Ebola-ebola", they asked how to pronounce it. This name is not in the normative dictionaries (there is only a fixation in the Big Encyclopedic Dictionary of Medical Terms), so we can only give a recommendation. We advise you to choose the stress on the second syllable - Ebola.

Even at the beginning of the year, there were questions related to sports, with the names of Olympic disciplines, stress in the names of athletes.

We ourselves tried to prevent some questions, tried to talk about sports, made such a small project “Olympic Dictionary”, in which we talked about how they are called, where the names come from, how to call an athlete, how to form an adjective. And there some very interesting things were revealed. We saw how the stress changed in the words “bobsleigh” and “skeleton”, for example. These words were borrowed with the stress on the first syllable. And then it moved on to the last one.

Do you collect a collection of funny questions?

We collect questions and appeals. Do you know how they turn to us at the information desk when they ask a question? They don't call us! And "dear keepers of letters", and "respected experts", "defenders of the great and mighty", and "our dear saviors". Here are some appeals.

And I also remember a warm question from one of the users, he began unexpectedly: “Hello! How are you doing?" It was touching.

We wrote: “We are doing well, we hope that you are too.”

As for topical questions: are they asked more by journalists, or are there also ordinary people for whom this is important?

This includes journalists (which is not surprising, since Gramota was, in fact, addressed primarily to journalists when it was created). And ordinary people, those who listen and read journalists and want to check whether the journalist said it right here, whether he wrote correctly, whether he made mistakes.

Recently there was an idea that we need a special portal for journalists in the Russian language. Is he needed or not? Or does the Diploma meet these requirements?

Here I would like to recall the anecdote of the Soviet era: “Why do we need two general secretaries?” Why do we need two portals? "Charter" was originally created as a reference base specifically for media workers. Then the materials began to expand, and it turned out that the addressee of the portal is all native speakers.

But this initial task - it continues to be relevant, no one removed it. And I think that we can just think about how to make the Diploma even more attractive to journalists. Perhaps, a separate bureau should be created in the information desk, which will be focused exclusively on the media and will work in a more efficient mode, maybe even around the clock. But, of course, this requires separate costs and support from the state.

Journalists are now completely illiterate, as everyone likes to say? Do you faint when you turn on the radio or TV?

I don't fall. And I, for one, have never said that about journalists, and I'm not going to.

Does that mean you can live?

Of course you can live. Yes, in general, literacy now, it seems to me, has become more monitored, because there are a lot of those who like to catch on illiteracy. Grammar Nazis live, thrive and multiply. And phenomena such as the secret spelling police (which appeared this year) are only gaining popularity. I don’t remember any very rude blunders lately.

Well, how! Recently, a picture was circulating on Facebook: “Hello, school!” This is a TV picture.

I think it was more of a technical marriage. Someone must have just been in a hurry and looked it over.

As for the Grammar Nazis who live and breed. Still, their activities are useful or not?

It seems to me that their activities contain little useful. Firstly, Grammar Nazis are people who are intolerant of the slightest deviations from the language norm. And any intolerance is, it seems to me, bad. Secondly, for the Grammar Nazis, language is divided into black and white, right or wrong. But this is not the case in language.

There are so many transitions, so many options: from less desirable to more desirable, this is preferable, this is acceptable, and this is also possible, and this is not very desirable, but in common parlance it seems to be not scary. Etc.

That is, there is no such thing in the language to be able to divide. And grammatical Nazism, like any Nazism, it divides into those who are with us and those who are against us.

Besides, what else do Grammar Nazis suffer from? They know some acute cases, learned some of the most important rules. Well, learned that "coffee" is masculine. Learned some more tricky accents. But sooner or later, they can still be in the place of those who are used to denouncing.

But people just do not like this fluctuation in the language, the availability of options. I want stability and a strong hand.

It's true. And any of our answers provokes accusations: "Since you answer like that, it means you don't know anything!"

Actually, it always has been. I really like the book by Kirill Sergeevich Gorbachevich, our outstanding linguist. The book is called “Word Variation and the Language Norm”, it was published in the late 70s. Gorbachevich in it talks in great detail about why there are variants in the language: stress variants, morphological variants, even spelling variants exist, why this is not an evil of the language, but a blessing. And he writes there that very often linguists are called upon to standardize the language by decree from above, that is, to eliminate any variation.

These appeals to linguists have always been and probably always will be. But this simply cannot be in a language, because the language is alive, it is always evolving. And in order for it to develop, there must necessarily be at some stage of its development both the old and the new. The old has not yet gone, the new has not yet finally settled down. And it provides a painless change. This should be in the language, this is the good of the language, and not at all evil.

Are there any norms for which you are offended, because no one really knows about them? That is, everyone focuses on standard errors and completely forgets about some other accents that everyone does wrong too.

Oh sure. We had a discussion with the presenter at one of the radio stations, just about the unfortunate verb "to call" was discussed. And I asked him: “And how do you say - “drills” or “drills”? He said “Well, of course, I say “drilling!”. How else? To which I told him that “drilling” is exactly the same mistake as “ringing”. And that if he says “drilling”, then, in general, he has no moral right to scold those who say “ringing”. From a linguistic point of view, they are one and the same.

More about verbs. My favorite verb is "to differ". What to do? Vary. Everyone says: "These phenomena are different, these options are different." Although it is necessary to say "different". But almost no one knows about it.

And I think that a lot of Grammar Nazis will fall for this if they are questioned.

Are grammar nazis and lingua freaks the same thing?

Still no. Linguists are mainly focused on the search for some secret roots of the Russian language, the secret meanings of Russian words and the desire to trace all this to DNA codes and so on.

We periodically receive letters from linguistic freaks in which they share their recent discoveries and achievements. “You didn’t know, but, it turns out, the entire Russian alphabet - it is a DNA model!”. And then there are calculations, formulas, very serious calculations. I, with my philological mindset, do not understand this. So I just click on the "Delete this email" button. But the next one won't be long in coming - that's for sure perfect.

We had another citizen who wrote a long question about the need to return to writing the prefix “bez-” in all cases, because we allowed demons into the Russian language, and from this all our troubles.

Do people actually believe this?

I don't know. When Zadornov began his performances, I thought for a very long time that this was all a joke, a joke, and that everyone understood that this was a joke. But then Russian language teachers began to write to us that children were beginning to say in schools that the word "love" is an abbreviation for "people know God." That is, someone believes in it and someone agrees with it, and this, probably, should be sad.

And how to determine that in front of you is a linguofreak?

The main sign is his reasoning about the history of the language, about sacred codes and secret meanings. I cannot but quote Academician Andrey Anatolyevich Zaliznyak, who devoted many lectures and articles to the fight against amateur linguists. “Where the criterion of a serious scientific analysis of a problem is discarded, motives of a taste, emotional, and especially ideological order will certainly come forward in its place - with all the social dangers that follow from this.”

Linguists who are so fond of talking about the Russian language and its history are exactly what they differ in - an underlined disregard for scientific data, increased emotionality (sometimes going beyond the bounds of decency), an appeal to an addressee who shares a certain ideology.

And these people are inherently aggressive. I once received a call from a very elderly woman who told me that the Russian language was destroyed by representatives of a certain nationality. She acted very emotionally, belligerently. Here are the distinguishing features.

Here the question arises: why is the language, which should unite and reconcile everyone, capable of causing such aggression, capable of quarreling everyone?

This is what worries me the most right now. And it’s not at all that “coffee” will become a neuter noun. It doesn't even bother me that the stress in the verb "rings" will shift sooner or later. What worries me is that our society is now split, disunited according to all, probably, signs: social, economic, political. The only thing we have in common is the language. And what should unite us, it is increasingly being used precisely for dismemberment, for separation, in order to sow enmity, confusion. The events of this year have once again shown how high the level of verbal aggression is. You need to think about this, and not about the type of coffee.

In general, words of hatred for a long time, as a rule, stay in the language? Or are they leaving rather quickly, and now this wave can subside?

Some live very long. For example, we know the pejorative names of nationalities that have been living for many centuries, although the same word "Jew", for example, used to be quite literary.

However, they don't last very long. By the way, it's amazing how some word, which was quite normal and neutral before, suddenly changes color.

I really like the example that my colleague Yulia Safonova likes to give. She draws attention to a quote from the film "The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath", which we will all be reviewing now.

There, Ippolit, washing in the shower, talks about Zhenya, and says: “They put me on a plane like a chock and sent me to Leningrad instead of Pavlik.”

“They planted me like a chock” - then it sounded completely normal. Chock, dunce, blockhead, loaded like a log. And now the word "chock" has a very definite connotation.

I know that you collect a collection of myths about the Russian language. Has it replenished with some myths this year?

This year it was replenished not with the myths themselves, but with confirmations that these myths exist. I think that soon we will have an article about verbs on "-sya". There's a common myth that you shouldn't say "clean up" because it means "clean yourself up".

And you can't say "I'm sorry" because it means "I'm sorry." In fact, neither the verb "clean up" nor the verb "apologise" have such meanings. The verb "get out" is just colloquial, but it is quite acceptable in colloquial speech and does not violate the norm.

And "I'm sorry" is a separate long story. And there will be an article on the Diploma about this soon.

Some myths about language from the collection of Vladimir Pakhomov
The Russian language is a million years old, all languages ​​are descended from Russian;
The title of the post of President of Russia must always be written with a capital letter;
The norm is set by linguists;
Literacy is the ability to write correctly and the knowledge of accents;
We pay for bread, but we pay for an apartment;
The word "eat" is spoken only by uncultured people;
Russian is the most difficult language to learn (only Chinese is more difficult);
Lying down is already the norm;
A person's nationality can be determined by their surname;
Spelling reform 1917-18 conceived by the Bolsheviks;
Cyril and Methodius invented the Russian alphabet (Russian language);

Do you think people are capable of going to a rally for the Russian language?

I think yes. I think if it is announced that some odious variant will fall into the dictionary and from tomorrow only “ringing” will be correct, I think that the rally will take place. At least, the collection of signatures on the Internet will definitely be addressed to the first persons of the state with a demand to cancel this emphasis.

Our traditional question. How to reassure people who think language is dying?

I usually reassure people not with general words, but with concrete examples. My favorite example is the plural of the word "train". Now we, except for the “train”, will not use any other option. And in the reference book of the beginning of the 20th century one could read: “The illiterate accent “train” instead of the normative and correct “train” is now in general use, but it is completely wrong, it is not clear on what grounds it is used.” And the subtext was this: “Where are we going and what will we come to if we say “train”?” But now we say “poezdA”, and the Russian language has not collapsed from this. And from other options that many now do not like so much, it will not fall apart either. How not to fall apart from the "trains".

That is, we do not roll somewhere into the abyss, but we simply roll along the road and go our own way?

Yes, we're on the road and we're walking this path. But it worries me that there are so many words of hate along the way. You need to get rid of this. This is now the biggest problem of the Russian language.

Let us all wish that there are fewer such words in the new year and fewer situations in which they appear.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of conscience of the authorities and the judiciary, young people suffer from this most often. Let me post one smart meme on this occasion so that there are no associations that linguo extremists have something in common with Hitler or the language policy of the Third Reich (P.S. Sorry for the obscene meme)

Here are the events that were associated with this phenomenon:
Buryat activist fined for using Grammar Nazi emblem(Lenta.ru)
In Buryatia, a court fined Young Guard activist Maria Burdukovskaya 1,000 rubles for publishing the emblem of the Grammar Nazi movement. The railway court of Ulan-Ude saw propaganda of Nazi symbols in the image, reports UlanMedia.

“According to the district police officer who drafted it, the article is quite formal, that is, if you posted it, you received a fine,” Burdukovskaya said.

On June 5, 2014, Burdukovskaya posted images of a Nazi eagle with the caption Grammatik Macht Frei (“Grammar liberates”) on her VKontakte page.

On the internet, Grammar Nazis are the name given to people who frenetically struggle with grammatical and spelling errors.

On March 2, a court fined Smolensk journalist Polina Petruseva 1,000 rubles for promoting and publicly displaying Nazi symbols after she posted a Nazi-occupied photograph on social media that showed the flag of the Third Reich.

And such cases are not isolated. Yes, my dear friends and supporters, I have finally become convinced that liberalism / liberalism is a misanthropic ideology and it should be banned at the highest legislative level. Whatever Putin says that "we want to make the state more liberal," I have my own counterargument on this score. To paraphrase Jörg Haider:
"The fundamental role of language should become one of the foundations. I oppose liberalization and Americanization. And it is spreading more and more widely in our society and country. This is worrying. Recall once again Putin's direct statement: "We want to make the state more liberal" (oligarchic) "This makes us come to the conclusion that such a message has nothing to do with the peaceful intentions of our government and is a psycho-perverted vision of reality. I am sure that we need a law that protects against total liber-dictatorship, so I openly say: no more liberalizations, oligarchizations and Americanization. Hands off your tongue—go to your West!"

Now let's take a look at what the news agencies write.

"How peaceful Albany was exterminated by the Nazi Grammaria" (RIA)

Anna Kurskaya, columnist for RIA Novosti.

Now it is fashionable to fight for the purity of written speech: A popular community of "grammar-Nazis" has even appeared in Runet. But were Russians so literate before the advent of the Internet? International Literacy Day, which is celebrated on Saturday, is a reminder of this problem.

Any more or less enlightened society strives to teach all its members to read and write, and Russia is no exception here. Today, it seems that absolutely all of our compatriots are literate. However, one often hears complaints that today's school graduates have begun to read less and have a worse understanding of what they read than their peers 30-40 years ago.

So is it or not? No one knows.

The claim that the level of reading literacy in the country has declined over the past decades sounds quite plausible. School reforms, videos and computer games could do the trick. But the truth is that until the end of the 1990s, no one measured the literacy of Russians, Galina Kovaleva, head of the Education Quality Assessment Department at the Institute for the Content of Teaching Methods of the Russian Academy of Education, told RIA Novosti.

Since 1997, schoolchildren's literacy has not fundamentally declined, although, unfortunately, it remains below the world average. This is evidenced by the results of the international PISA surveys, which are held every three years. The latest tests three years ago showed that Russian teenagers rank only 41-43 in terms of reading comprehension among their peers from 65 countries.

"In recent years, there has been some deterioration, but today we are getting out of the dip to the level of 2000, and there has even been some growth," said Galina Kovaleva.

At the same time, she suggests being cautious about the assertion that the older generation was more educated, while the youth became illiterate.

“Yes, maybe thirty or forty years ago the school was a little different: the amount of knowledge was a little less, but this knowledge was better practiced. At the same time, those who say that earlier all young people were encyclopedically prepared usually mean only people from well-to-do families who received a good education," the expert noted.

The smiley that changed the written language
As for the skills of competent writing, everything is not so simple here either. It is difficult to understand whether our compatriots were more literate half a century ago. It is possible that this is an illusion; There was no Internet then, and there was simply nowhere to demonstrate your skills to people who were not related to writing and journalism.

Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that the popularity of the Internet has deprived Russians of the last ability to write correctly. Indeed, if our compatriot living, for example, in 1970, had a fantastic opportunity to look at today's Facebook or LiveJournal, he would not understand much.

It is already difficult for us to realize how much written speech has changed due to the use of emoticons and brackets, network slang and jargon, abbreviations, words like "mimimi". The Internet has really noticeably changed the appearance of communications, the very infrastructure of the conversation has become fundamentally new.

"Some Internet users say they stop reading a person who puts emoticons. But not everyone can write like Ilf and Petrov, and for many, a smiley is the only available way to express emotions," German Klimenko, director and owner of Liveinternet, told RIA Novosti. .

However, there are also a lot of errors, and Internet users copy them from each other. Naturally, this phenomenon gave rise to a counter movement for a return to literate speech. So, the Internet company Yandex just recently launched a new Internet service to combat illiteracy, which collected and visually corrected the most common spelling errors.

"Learn Albany!"

As a defensive reaction to numerous errors in online speech, the "Albanian" language or "Padonkaff jargon" appeared on the Internet a few years ago. It has become a kind of slang, an identification mark for an Internet party. “Rzhunimagu”, “kamenty”, “author, drink yada”, “hellish soton”, “preved” immediately gained immense popularity in Runet.

"Albansky" phonetically preserved Russian words almost unchanged, but deliberately distorted their spelling. True, with the interpretation of some expressions, such as "author zhzhot" (the author lights up), bloggers regularly had problems.

Interestingly, for the "Albanian" spelling, Russian words were distorted not at random, but according to quite certain rules. Those who used jargon had to know the rules of the Russian language well. In fact, the "language of padonkuff" was the language of literate people who wanted to "play" with the norm, but were ready to return to it at any moment.

But a few years passed, and something happened to Albany. Either the fashion has passed, or the Internet has gone far beyond the most educated part of society, and the new audience could not understand and accept the game with the language ...

Today, the “crossers” and “bears” are no longer visible, and there is no new network jargon in Runet yet.

Grammar Nazis on the march

But the language continues to live its bizarre life on the Internet. Over the past year, in the Russian-speaking part of the network, such a phenomenon that came from the West as "grammar Nazis", "grammar Nazis" has come into fashion.

Behind this name are intolerant grammar lovers, ready to wedge into any discussion with not always appropriate remarks about grammatical or spelling errors.

The new fashion has given a modern form to the eternal phenomenon. Many years ago, back in the pre-Internet era, an acquaintance said to the author of these lines in the subway: “Do you see the inscription on the girl’s T-shirt? There is one word superfluous. I can hardly resist coming up and crossing it out with a felt-tip pen.”

Former know-it-alls, upstarts and bores, who in recent years have spontaneously poisoned the life of bloggers, are now perceived as an actual countercultural phenomenon. Almost 44,000 social network users subscribed to the Grammar Nazi VKontakte page.

The main product of self-expression of the "grammar Nazi" is demotivators, pictures with caustic and moralizing inscriptions glorifying the purity of the language. In fact, "grammar Nazis" have become a response to the creeping modification of the Russian language on the net. Perhaps their appearance hastened the demise of the Albansky.

"Peaceful Albania was attacked by the Nazi Grammaria," someone wrote on the blog.

It is worth noting that another group enjoys considerable popularity in Runet - the Philological Maiden community has gathered highly educated lovers of literature among Vkontakte users.

"Anapest, anapaest, anapaest... This is how amphibrach sounds."

"Did you put on a fur coat? And now undress it."

"In the basement of the club of lovers of tautology, the corpse of the deceased dead man was found killed to death."

Admirers of the "Philological Maiden" express themselves more gracefully than the brutal adherents of "grammatical Nazism", but, in fact, also stand for the correct speech and knowledge of Russian literature.

Campaign of literates to the masses
Many remember the hit movie Whiskers in the early 1990s, which showed what a subculture of literary-lovers could look like when it spilled onto the streets. At the end of the film, the "Pushkinists" walking around with sideburns and walking sticks were swept away by shaved bald people in yellow jackets reciting Mayakovsky.

Will the Grammar Nazis, hand in hand with the languid philological maidens, carry the culture of speech to the people? Hardly, says German Klimenko.

"I think that Grammar Nazism will not become a widespread fashion, it will remain popular in a narrow stratum of Internet users," he said.

Indeed, it is very difficult to become a member of this subculture: you have to study for a long time and be slightly concerned about philology. For many Internet users, expressing their thoughts clearly in ordinary Russian is no longer an easy task.

"Linguistic minorities will certainly be able to form a fashionable trend. But we, the illiterate, will not be defeated!" - Herman Klimenko exclaims.

Secret war for the purity of the Russian language (RIA)
On International Mother Language Day, Dmitry Vinogradov met bug hunters.
RIA News.
MOSCOW, February 21 - RIA Novosti, Dmitry Vinogradov.

The correspondent of RIA Novosti met with philological virgins, who are most concerned about Russian grammar and punctuation, asked why they are better than "grammar Nazis" and even completed their task.

Grammar Nazis and the Spelling Police
Polina Ivanova, a 3rd year student at the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University and one of the creators of the Secret Spelling Police, is difficult to talk to. While we are talking in a cafe, she turns her head, finds two typos in the ad at once and takes a picture of it (this is an ad about the prohibition of "photo and video shooting"). “I’ll send it to the administration. Coffee houses and restaurants quickly correct mistakes,” says Polina.

Correcting, and not just collecting errors, is the main goal of "spelling cops". In this they see their difference from the Grammar Nazis. This is a trend in social networks, to which many communities belong, where users post photos and scans with errors. Comments addressed to the authors of the errors, however, are far from the norms of language etiquette. It feels like people are more self-assertive.

On the page of one of the "grammar-Nazi" communities, their mission is formulated as follows: "Grammar-Nazi (national linguist, linguo-fascist, literate-oprichnik) is an aggressive literate with innate literacy and a heightened sense of beauty. He gets annoyed when someone admits grammatical or spelling mistake, and instantly rushes to the attack, waving dictionaries and links to Gramota.ru.

Grammar Nazis, however, actively fight for the "purity of the language" and outside the communities. Here is one of the characteristic dialogues - the Grammar Nazi copied it and published it in the community, having received the burning approval of friends. One girl shares her impressions about the changes in the design of Vkontakte: "But I like it. All the same, for everyone who is in contact, they did it, you just have to treat it from the best side." The young man cannot resist: "Girl, leave the Internet, please. So that I, like other literate people, do not cry blood looking at such messages." The girl reacts with obscenity. By the way, also with errors.

Grammar Nazis have already become the butt of numerous jokes. For example, the fictional funny news website Smixer recently reported that "Grammar Nazis beat a Russian nationalist in Moscow for violating spelling and punctuation in the phrase 'Russia is for Russians'."

Authors of errors do not like to correct them.
“We do not aim to make fun of illiterate people,” says Polina Ivanova of the Secret Spelling Police. “Besides, we only correct mistakes made in public space. In private correspondence, a person, roughly speaking, has the right to be illiterate.”

Polina Ivanova, student of the philological faculty of Moscow State University and one of the founders of the "Secret Spelling Police"

Members of the Secret Spelling Police also post reports of their small spelling victories to their Vkontakte community.

They answer "cops", however, not all authors of errors. "The Moscow government is responding promptly," says Polina. Orfopolitsey noticed streamers on the streets with calls to complain about a special site if "the elevator is not working properly." The mayor's office redesigned the banners and thanked the activists.

The Moscow Mayor's Office reacts quite quickly to complaints from "policemen"

Manufacturers of all kinds of products that make mistakes in packaging react quickly. They promise to re-release the packaging and often do.
But the beauty salon from Samara refused to correct "in the course" in its gift certificate, answering that "the beauty of the whole offer will suffer." Although much more often the authors of errors simply ignore the letters of the "policemen".

"How do you sign your appeals? Is that how you spell Secret Spelling Police?" - asks the correspondent of RIA Novosti. “We usually explain that we are a community of caring volunteers,” Polina replies.

Tongue got lost
The movement of "policemen", in whose community there are already more than 2 thousand people from the CIS countries, appeared in the fall of 2013. It was created by several students of philological and historical faculties, and one of the founders of the "police" was a schoolboy.

“Walked along Poklonnaya Gora, noticed a mistake on the monument: “To the missing soldiers without graves.” First they giggled, then thought about how to fix it. The monument answers and to whom it “belongs,” says Polina.

Philologists did not calm down until they got an answer: the assistant of one of the State Duma deputies, to whom the "secret policemen" turned, assured the guys that there was no mistake, and "unknown" is an adverb. “With references to dictionaries, we proved that, despite the stability of the expression, “missing” is not an adverb, but a noun with a preposition,” recalls Polina. The Department of Cultural Heritage of the Moscow Mayor's Office pleased the "policemen" by saying that the replacement of the sign "is included in the work plan for 2015."

It’s generally a problem with monuments, says Polina Ivanova, sometimes it seems that they don’t have literary editors, and reworking bronze tablets is expensive. In St. Petersburg there is a monument where the inscription "To military doctors who fell in wars" is made without a comma. And last year, the blogosphere laughed at the restored Romanovskaya stele in the Alexander Garden - the word "memory" was written with a yate instead of b.

It is even harder for sculptors to make an inscription if it is not in Russian. At VDNKh, "policemen" discovered a globe with constellations signed in Latin. The constellations of the Hare and the Wolf are signed the same way, "lupus". Although lupus is wolf and hare is lepus.

Experts find it difficult to determine which version of Old Church Slavonic is used for the inscriptions on the monument to Cyril and Methodius

There is a more complex example: the monument to the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Primate Teachers Cyril and Methodius in Moscow. The inscriptions are made in Church Slavonic, but it is not very clear to which era this version of his spelling belongs. For example, Ivanova says, the inscriptions contain the letters "yus big" and "yus small", which really were in the oldest version of the orthography of the Church Slavonic language, the one that Cyril and Methodius developed. But then it turns out that the letters b and b are used incorrectly - for example, according to the norms of that time, it should be "equal" and "prvo", and on the monument "equal" and "first". “Most of all, this version of Church Slavonic is similar to the one that was in the 15th-16th centuries,” says Polina. Why it was chosen for the monument to the saints who lived in the 9th century is unknown.

With a marker - to protect the language
Finding bugs in the urban environment has turned into an exciting hunt, to which more and more new volunteers are constantly joining. At the community forum, schoolgirl Dasha Panteleeva asks: "Can I become a member of the secret police? I am 13 years old, studying in the 7th grade. I confirm my status as an excellent student. But there is a problem: I live in a microscopic town. Do we need such a police force?"

"There are mistakes in every city," her older comrades cheer her up. “We want all members of our community not to write to our headquarters, but to look for the owners of the “erroneous” announcements and signs themselves,” says Polina.

If the error is not replicated in the package, but is made in a single copy, on a sign, then it can be corrected by yourself - with a marker. “The owner of the “spoiled” tablet may want to change it so as not to be dishonored,” Polina explains. Next to the correction, the guys stick a sticker: "Secret spelling police."

Sometimes the "secret cops" even have to conflict with the authors of the errors. Employees of one of the embassies, on the fence of which the guys were correcting a mistake in an official announcement, threatened to call the police. And the mayor's office of the city of Vladimir sent a notice that self-correction of errors on memorial plaques and posters is an administrative offense.
First task

Finally, Polina gives the RIA Novosti correspondent stickers and a task: in the underpass of the city near Moscow, where the journalist lives, a mistake was made in the announcement. The address of the sports bar says "Lermontovo Street". This error can be corrected by yourself, with a marker: the sign hangs low.

I find the second error myself. A clothing store in the heart of the city is decorated with a frilly slogan that lacks a comma: "Many facets inherent in the world." Here you can’t fix the mistake yourself, you have to go to the store. The administrator looks at the guest in a strange way and, having called the owner, promises to correct the mistake, honestly warning that this will not happen too quickly.

Yes, next time, perhaps, it's better to find an email address and write a letter. With the cryptic signature "Secret Spelling Police".

***
Summarize. The Grammar Nazi movement has become a part of our lives today. Thanks to such defenders of the language, one can be sure that our language will not only be able to survive, but also become much cleaner and better, and the number of people learning it as a foreign language will only grow. A few years ago, Austrian linguists began to sound the alarm: their national version was in danger of extinction. Austria categorically refuses to switch to common German. Today, Austria has already adopted a program to republish the dictionary of Austrianisms, which, by the way, has already gone through more than 40 editions. I note that the Austrian version of the German language contains many borrowings from many languages, most of which are Slavic.

Osterreichisches Wörterbuch. 40. Auflage

In general, the struggle for language is akin to the struggle for culture, because language is part of our culture and self-consciousness, and not just a communication tool. Remember Bismarck's Kulturkampf. This term came into use in 1873, when the scientist and Prussian statesman who adhered to liberal views, Rudolf Virchow, for the first time designated the struggle of Prussian and partly all-imperial German law against ultramontanism, or, more specifically, the struggle of Bismarck (and the National Liberals who joined him) against the Catholic Party Center and in general claims of the Catholic Church under Pope Pius IX.

After a period of peaceful relations with the church, the Prussian government, immediately following the unification of Germany in January 1871, fearing the particularistic aspirations of the Catholic clergy under the influence of the decisions of the First Vatican Council and papal claims, switched to a new system of church-state law. The initiator of this policy was Chancellor Bismarck, the main executor of his plans was the Prussian Minister of Public Education and Confessions A. Falk. Bismarck, a staunch Protestant, never fully trusted the loyalty of Catholics to the newly created German Empire, he was especially alarmed by the Declaration of Papal Infallibility issued by the Vatican Assembly. The Catholics who made up the Central Party were unhappy with Protestant Prussia playing a major role in the empire and often opposed Bismarck's policies.

Today Sprachkampf is in some way a branch of Kulturkampf, but given the fact that now in the yard of the XXI century. it takes on a different meaning - protection from extinction due to Americanization. I support such people who act as lingvoguards and sincerely wish them good luck and final victory in their difficult struggle.

"Kämpf mit uns und sieg mit uns,
Im Sprachaufstand fur Gerechtigkeit
Kämpf mit uns und sieg mit uns
Die heile Zukunft ist nicht mehr weit!

Nothing mehr weit
Nothing mehr weit
Nicht mehr weit..." (Schlachthaus. "Kampf mit uns")

And one more thing: if any prosecutor tries to file a case against GN or collect a fine, then our goal in protecting GN from such arbitrariness should be that the prosecution pay compensation in excess of the amount of the fine in an illegally filed case. Blow - blow! Grammar Nazis have nothing to do with Hitler's Nazis. Everywhere the Führer is imagining - blow into the hospital for all eternity!