Privilege Is Bad Grammar

Source: Hacker News

First email experience

When I got my first real job, I used to get so nervous about writing emails to my boss. I would run spellcheck, triple‑check the grammar, read over it again and again to make sure my tone sounded professional and mature and not young and stupid. After painstakingly revising the email for 30 minutes, I would send it to my boss, who would respond right away with a message that looked like:

K  let circle back nxt week bout it . thnks 
*Sent from my iPhone*

Overcompensating with professionalism

I had another job where my bosses were heavy emoji users. I would send them super‑professional emails, trying so hard to overcompensate for how young I was, and they would respond back with a single sentence punctuated with multiple cry‑face emojis (😂). To this day, I think of that emoji as “corporate” since professionals love to use it for whatever reason. I’m used to it now, but a decade ago I thought it was odd. I thought we were supposed to be professionals? And professionals are supposed to write with good grammar, right?

Grammar in leaked emails

I’ve been thinking a lot about this ever since the latest Epstein document dump.¹ People have been uploading screenshots of emails between Epstein and Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Richard Branson. Besides all the upsetting and salacious details everyone is discussing, the thing that also surprises me is how bad everyone’s grammar is.

It reminded me so much of emails from bosses in my life: short, blunt (almost rude?), typos galore, weird formatting, bad grammar, “sent from iPhone”, etc. It’s almost as if, once you get to a certain level of power, you no longer need to try. The only reason people spend time crafting a well‑written email is to look powerful, mature, professional. But if you’re already a powerful professional, you technically don’t need to make an effort. And if there’s no other boss above you, you can do whatever you want.

The 2014 Sony Pictures hack

It also brings to mind another email leak, the 2014 Sony Pictures hack. While everyone ooed and ahhed over a bunch of executives talking crap about celebrities, the main thing I remember from that whole scandal was how sloppy and unprofessional the leaked emails were. I remember reading those emails with almost a sense of jealousy. If I had sent out an email with even a quarter of the typos they had, I probably would have lost my job.

Grammar as a form of privilege

I know words like “privilege” get thrown around a lot, and we all understand monetary privilege, power privilege, race privilege, but grammar privilege? That’s certainly a first.

Footnotes

1. I haven’t read through it myself, but I’ve heard more than enough through articles and social media. ↩