“You knowed the Devil was in town because everybody speaks bad grammar,” said Charles Stoller. “Every time he visits east Tennessee we don’t know the difference between the King’s English and a horse’s butt. I can’t stand myself when I talk bad. Mess me up something awful. I’m all confused. Don’t know how to use who or whom or which or what.”

The folks in Teddy, Tennessee, a small town in east Tennessee don’t like talking like they was raised ignorant. But once the Devil comes around there isn’t much anyone can do. “People say “ain’t” and “twas” and they sentences plum ungrammatical,” said Patty Blossom. “Can’t understand nobody no how. What they saying come out all wrong? They skewed up the language. Every sentence they speak got a bad thing about it. Break all the rules of grammar and some they don’t have rules for.”

While the demand for good grammatical language increases the Devil can’t resist casting one of his spells on small southern towns and waiting for the people to try speaking to one another. The ambivalent nature of trying to say what you mean without using good grammar is a difficult thing to overcome.

“Causing bad grammar by supernatural means,” said Bill Orwell, “should be against the law.” I heard somebody say the other day: But, if I’da knowed you’da want to went, or come back, I’da seed you’da got to get to go.”

“All I know is if a noun works hard, gets the right training, and enough breaks it can beat the odds and become a pronoun. If you split an infinitive that’s okay. It’s good to share. That’s the rules of grammar. If you adverb to a verb you got two verbs.”

“I heared a pregnant woman in a Knoxville Hospital had four contractions last night. She had a Wasn’t, a Weren’t, a Shouldn’t and a Couldn’t. That’s Quadruplets. In the next room, Can’t was born. Five pound, three ounces. Both mother and infant are doing fine. Can’t’s father gave out cigars in celebration of the blessed event.”

“Grammar has a set of implicit rules that govern the formation of sentences. You got to express your ideas clearly without infraction of grammatical rules.”

“Then I heard “Do you figure they was ready for the sun to get up. Butch, he got up, he had a shower. He had him a biscuit after he got up. Some grits too, you betcha. I call tell you I said to Paul Sabbon, “Hello, Paul, how yourn and yours doing? And he looked at me like I had done something horrible. Something that he would never in his life forgive me for. These country boys can be touchy when it comes to bad grammar. Reminds them, I guess, of their humble upbringing. They too sophisticated to be talking like pigs. Most of them so smart they know all about grammar. They don’t speak no bad grammar unless the Devil throw one of his spells. “

“Bad grammar can humiliate and belittle you. Make you feel smaller than a toady frog. Which is what the Devil had in mine.”

from http://evangelicalspectator.typepad.com/the_evangelical_spectator/2006/06/satan_cause_of_.html