Other example would be âall men have penisâ. Accusing someone for âfaking their identityâ.
I translate:
be a biologist
research clovers
everyone says âclovers have 3 leavesâ
its a law of nature
go outside
find 4-leaf clover
i better take it to court for violating laws of nature
This is obviously stupid. Discovering something that violates a descriptive âlawâ means the law was wrong. And yet, people do this in conversation all the time.
Sometimes casual conversation begins with a âButâ. E.g., someone might say âBut anyway, have you seen that new movie Oppenheimer?â
Grammar nazis react to this by saying âYou canât say âbutâ at the start of a sentence if that sentence isnât a rebuttal of the previous sentence! Itâs a law of english!â
âLawsâ of english are meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive. But alas, we live in a society đ
You can decide all clovers have 3 leafs. That doesnât mean 4 leaf covers stop existing or are wrong.
You can decide âbutâ is only for contradictions. That doesnât mean people wonât use it other ways or itâs wrong.
You can decide all men have penises. That doesnât mean some wonât or thatâs wrong.
You deciding shit doesnât actually change reality. And being pissy about it is as idiotic as suing 4 leaf clovers for you thinking they should only have 3 leafs.
That grammar evolves naturally, like species do, so any rules we find for the categorization of either should reflect reality, not try to dictate it.
For example, I just started that bit with a clause, which means itâs a fragment, not a sentence. I still put a period at the end of it and started it without any lead in, which is âwrong,â but itâs more that the rule is wrong, because what I wrote plays the role of a sentence in this case.