Nit-picking at grammar? Why?

The most interesting part of this question is the one about children. Apparently, most children go through a phase in their language learning where they have gained enough information from observation and listening to begin making up new sentences by themselves.

They will then go through a period of "regularizing" words, making "breaked" instead of "broke" or "broken". In some cases, they'll even know the simple past tense, like "went" and regularize it to "wented"! This is not evidence of stupidity, but of high intelligence, in my opinion. This means they have broken free of simple mimicking, and are using the language creatively.

They outgow this phase as they continue to hear other patterns, but over time (centuries), many of our words do tend to get their edges softened and regularized. We say, for example, "dived in the water" instead of "dove in the water" and it's just fine.

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I guess that's a fair question. There's no immediate harm done to language, but it could eventually cause confusion. It's important to be able to communicate well because it helps people know exactly what you're talking about -- having worked in the legal field, it's amazing to see the really bad results when people use vague or imprecise words to describe what they're talking about. Even if it didn't seem wrong to say at the time, other people can interpret things differently if you don't say things properly.

Granted, there are times when it doesn't matter, like if you're around friends or something...but if it carries on into the rest of your life, it could cause significant problems.

If the phrase "You breaked my toys" is acceptable to you, I would suggest that you go back to school and finish the second grade. I work with people that murder the English language. I cringe every time I hear a phrase like "I hadn't saw him today". I'm from the Northeast, but I live in the South. It is hard to believe that some of the people here ever went to school at all. I expect some redneck comments from this post.

Power.

There is a vast difference in consciousness between one who says, "For Whom The Bell Tolls" and someone who makes the lesser choice.

How do you react to the accusation, "You breaked my toys."? If it's a child you think it's childish, an adult you think is moronic.

Really good English usage is powerful. It's a shame that it is now the lingua franca of the world because it is always in danger of becoming bastardised. It should be guarded and treasured.

The purpose of language is to clearly transmit information from one person to another, avoiding any possible misunderstandings. This is especially important when English is not the native language of the person to whom you are speaking. Grammar is an important part of this clarity. The difference between 'who' and 'whom', for instance, is the difference between the subject of a sentence (ex. Who will bell the cat?) and the object or recipient of an action (ex. To whom did you give the book?). Misunderstandings are minor in most cases, but they can have disastrous results.

Yes, there are many verbs that are irregular in the past tense. They were probably regular verbs originally; however, they have become so ingrained in the language that treating them as regular verbs (ex. broke/breaked) leaves hearers with the impression that the speaker is uneducated and, by extrapolation, stupid. Unfortunately, many people have forgotten that the past tense of 'hang' is 'hanged', not 'hung' (when referring to people, that is), or that the past tense of 'dive' is 'dived', not 'dove'. (Sorry to disappoint, but d-o-v-e is a bird.)

It's fine to play around with language in an informal setting, but when it comes to business, education, law, or any other formal situation, precision of meaning is most important.

We correct incorrect grammar to keep the language pure and traditional and to pass it down that way through the generations. Maybe in everyday speech, it might not matter, but in business and professional life, it is very important. When someone uses incorrect grammar they sound uneducated, undisciplined, unmotivated and lazy.

In children, their grasps of language will mature as they do but ONLY if they hear the correct usage of words.

Nit-picking isn't a word.