There are two approaches to grammar: prescriptive grammar and descriptive grammar. Sometimes what you hear or read is not exactly what you learned. This is probably because of these two approaches.
Here’s a short video about prescriptive and descriptive grammar:
Definitions of prescriptive and descriptive grammar
Prescriptive Grammar is about how the language should be used. Descriptive Grammar is about how the language actually is used by adult native speakers. If what descriptive grammar describes differs from what prescriptive grammar prescribes and this becomes permanent, the rules of the former may sometimes become the rules of the latter.
Prescriptive Grammar is the grammar that:
– is taught in school
– is mandated by language academies (no academy for English)
– requires conscious effort on our part to remember and apply
Examples
Let’s jump into some examples right away:
Here’s an example: I vs me
Jake and me are coming to the party too.
This is what prescriptive grammar has to say about this sentence:
– here me is used as subject, instead we should use I,
– me should be used as object
So, according to prescriptive grammar the sentence should read:
Jake and I are coming to the party too.
And this is what descriptive grammar says:
– me is becoming increasingly widespread in subject position
Another example: who vs whom
The woman who I met looked sick.
According to prescriptive grammar:
– here who is used as object, instead we should use whom
– who should be used as subject
So, the sentence should read:
The woman whom I met looked sick.
According to descriptive grammar:
– who is usually used as both subject and object
These two examples illustrate the difference between prescriptive grammar (how the language should be used) and descriptive grammar (how the language actually is used). I’m sure you know more examples, so feel free to share in the comments section.