grammar - Is it ever worth the time and effort to correct someone else's grating grammatical mistakes?

Whenever I hear statements like "It was a great deal for he and I" and "Call Karen and I in the morning," I die a little. Such solecisms, as Twain said in another context (Cooper's prose style), "grate upon the fastidious ear." Moreover, I know that these things will likely become accepted usage in time, if that hasn't already happened.

As someone who tries to be careful with words and speech, I feel almost a moral obligation to hold the line against this kind of decline. I'm not a word snob; I say "ain't" when it works for emphasis, and so on. I've tried suggesting the grammatical alternative to the above constructions, but even when I phrase my suggestion in the gentlest possible way it never works well and I almost always wind up feeling pedantic and priggish at best, and at worst I feel I've alienated someone.

What's the general opinion here? Is it best to just let these things slide or to take up the fight? In sum, is there a good way to promote good grammar, or at least protect it from the most egregious violations?

Answer

There is nothing wrong with having gut reactions to the way that people say things. I am completely aware that the standard/educated version of a language is arbitrary (i.e. is no more "correct" in any real sense than any dialect), and even still, I have pet peeves and things that irk me about people's language usage. I think these are unavoidable, just like my reaction to certain fashion choices that people make in their outfits. But, like with fashion, there is very little objective truth to my judgment about any of it.

I try not to actually challenge people on uses that bother me; aside from the arbitrariness of language, every bit of evidence suggests that stopping language change in any significant way is like going to the beach and trying to stop the tide from coming in. There was a more in-depth discussion about this in a previous question.

That said, I do believe there is a certain time and place where standards and clarity are important. In formal contexts, information is often supposed to be presented in a certain way, and, generally, these conventions benefit everyone. Also, following certain language conventions in these situations can eliminate ambiguity. If I am asked to proofread an academic paper that my colleague has written, I would make corrections for things that I would never object to otherwise.