Michael Zoumadakis

English 2030
T. Rousculp
Tuesday/ Thursday 10:00

Data Collection, Analysis, and Presentation

For this project I sat down with five different members of my church on a Sunday
during social hour after church, and asked them if incorrect grammar bothered them. If
they answered yes, which all 5 participants did, I asked them if incorrect grammar bothers
them more if it is written or spoken. All members were of Caucasian race, but had different
ages, genders and varying levels of education.
Participant 1 is a 27 year old female nurse with a bachelors degree, who works at
the VA hospital. She is bothered by incorrect grammar, but says it bothers her more when it
is written. I am around retired military men all day long and listen to them speak
incorrectly all the time, I am used to that. But when people do not take the time to write
out you instead of U in a text, it drives me absolutely insane.
Participant 2 is a 19 year old male college student with a high school degree. He says
that incorrect grammar bothers him regardless of if it is written or spoken, but he does not
really care about it. He says, People can talk and write how they want, who am I to judge
the language that someone uses? I dislike when people use incorrect grammar, but what
are you going to do about it?
Participant 3 is a 55 year old male medical doctor. He is bothered by incorrect
grammar whether it is written or spoken, but written bothers him more. He says that
people that dont take the time to use correct grammar are lazy and make themselves
sound unintelligent, and believes the source of it to be texting and the use of technology.
He says, Young peoples communication and social skills are dropping rapidly because of
the use of texting and lack of face to face interaction. It is really sad to see this happening.
Participant 4 is a 45 year old male with an MBA. He is bothered by incorrect
grammar more when it is written than spoken. He says that when people use incorrect
grammar in business, it makes their bid or proposal unappealing. When bidders write me
proposals for million dollar projects I am investing in, it is extremely unappealing to see
grammatical errors and makes me skeptical about choosing them to contract my project.
Participant 5 is a 75 year old woman with a bachelors degree. She believes that
incorrect grammar, both written and spoken, is absolutely unacceptable. She is also highly
bothered when people use curse words. When I went to school, we got a grade for
grammar, and detention for cussing. Today people use incorrect grammar and swear in
every sentence.
A common belief between all of the participants is that grammatical errors, both
verbal and written, make people think they are and lazy or stupid. The participants also felt
that texting and the widespread use of technology was causing people to use bad grammar
and have poor communication skills. I also concluded that while these people were all
bothered by incorrect grammar, they would not correct the person using it, as that could be
frowned upon socially. I found it interesting that people that were around bad grammar
frequently were less critical of people that use it, although the educated 75 year old
participant looked down at people who used bad grammar and curse words. This was a very
interesting assignment that really opened my eyes to how people view bad grammar.