Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
Grammar transmits information, but that information frequently (not always, but frequently) serves as an error-correcting code rather than a channel for additional information. Consider the following:
Even with pretty extreme destruction of information in the original sentence (e.g. randomly shuffling word order, or ignoring most grammatical rules while maintaining word order), you can still puzzle out what the sentence means. Minor errors on the level of using "then" instead of "than" every few sentences should have a pretty minimal effect on the reader's ability to determine what the author was trying to say.
I have an alternative hypothesis for why grammatical errors are aversive: flawless grammar demonstrates that either the author was smart and diligent enough to write the document correctly on the first try, or someone cared enough to edit the document. Either way, it serves as a costly signal of quality. Grammatical flaws demonstrate a conspicuous lack of that costly signal, and so readers develop a flinch response of "why am I even reading this, this is probably low value" whenever they hit a grammatical flaw.
Edit: Grugg had too much passion, use too many big word. Grug mean to say this. People tell Grugg "wrong words make hard understand". Grugg not believe people. Grugg think people see correlation, say causation.
Also you say is no prescriptivist linguist. Grugg agree now, but Grugg say that because prescriptivist tribe fight war but lose. Grugg point at Strunk and White.
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