Grammar ignoramuses strike again on Quora

A lot of people I know are quick to admit they know nothing about Physics but hardly anyone will readily say they don't know English grammar. I'm sure I have looked into this before elsewhere in this blog. I most certainly have offended quite a lot of people when I call them 'grammar ignoramuses'. But they really are. Most people are ignorant of English grammar. That is a fact and I have given in this blog examples of cabinet ministers in the UK who were stumped by journalists' questions on simple English grammar and I have also mentioned the reason for this. In the 1960s, linguists very wrongly advised against teaching English grammar in schools and this advice was adopted all over the world where English was taught. Although they are now redressing this huge mistake in the UK by reintroducing grammar in schools, it is not wrong to say that most English-speaking adults today are grammar ignoramuses.

But unlike Physics ignoramuses who do not profess a knowledge in Physics, let alone pretend to teach anyone Physics , grammar ignoramuses really believe they are grammar experts. I used to think they were dishonest but I am fairly certain now that it's a kind of benign mental state that makes a person believe he has a vast knowledge in grammar when he is really utterly ignorant of it. They are honest but they are ignorant and they don't even know that.

You can see this in Quora, an internet-based forum where people ask questions and those who think they know the answers give their response. I have mentioned Frank Dauenhauer before in this blog post: Query Quora. That Frank knows nothing about English grammar is obvious. He can't even get his part of speech right and that's kindergarten-level grammar. Here's what he posted on Quora slightly more than a week ago in response to the simple question, 'Is it "I feel bad" or "I feel badly"?':

To gym or not to gym

The first time I heard this word 'wrongly' used was some years ago when my son's friend told me he liked 'to gym'. Since then, I have seen 'gym' used as a verb with all its inflections by mainly youngish people. Although I must confess I absolutely detest such an abominable conversion, I cannot turn a blind eye to how rich the English language has become through this process of verbing over the centuries. There are many examples of fairly recent verbs that originated from nouns and we use them every day without batting an eyelid. One such verb which I use liberally is ‘text’ which today can only be used in the context of sending a message on the mobile phone. It has the advantage of brevity. 'Texting a friend' is much shorter than 'sending him a text message' but brevity alone does not guarantee acceptance of the usage of a word, especially when the usage sounds suspiciously modern. Why then do I (and presumably you too) find ‘text’ more acceptable than ‘gym’ when both words are used as verbs?