Embracing imperfection: Why I choose authentic errors over AI's polished prose

Daily Maverick

3 days ago

I want to delete Grammarly and other AI editing software. Because I want to make the same old and authentic syntax errors. I want to write with grammatical mistakes and spelling errors, because there is something very sexy and original about that.
I want to stop using platforms that impose prefabricated styles, that insist on front matter and formatting before truth, that demand cover pages as if meaning needs a passport.
These are bureaucratic standards rooted in Euro-American notions of order, hierarchy and tidiness. They do not understand my Bantu education context. They cannot interpret my African oral tradition metaphors and Inanda proverbs.
They want to universalise thought and smooth over difference with bias.
Because writing in English is itself a struggle and a triumph. Full stop. My stylistic mistakes represent writing back to the Empire. Writing to my own audience, who understand both the meaning and the context of what I say. My grammatical mistakes are not accidents. They are resistance. They are freedom. Full stop.
Writing with invention
Every so-called syntax error Africans make is Shakespearean. It is writing with invention, bending language into meaning. And yes, we interchange past and present, call he she, and arrive at a point in a roundabout way. Because our lives are circular. Our stories spiral. Our logic loops back. We always return to where we started, no matter how long the journey takes. Like rondavels. Like amaziyoni, round and round.
This reality does not fit the templates of the Empire. That is why our Bantu education English is marked with red and blue lines, suggesting changes that must be made. They are not corrections, actually. They are borders we must refuse to respect.
Microsoft Editor doesn't understand this spiral. It treats my detours as mistakes and my emphasis as overreach. It flags sentences that carry emotional weight, asking me to 'clarify' what is already felt deeply. But our writing is not always for clarity. Sometimes it is for echo. For memory. For return.
Grammar and AI proofreading platforms are part of an epistemicide. They dictate how we think, what we say and how we conclude meaning. They tell us to break paragraphs that carry too much emotion. They whisper: 'Too many ideas in one sentence.'
But what if our thinking is braided? What if our logic spirals like praise poetry? Do you think Mazisi Kunene's epic would have made it through these softwares that dislike our metaphors and flag our proverbs?
These things want our stories boiled and trimmed, polite and universal. These tools are like an excited first-time supervisor — insecure in his authority — imposing his will over students, mistaking dominance for mentorship.
QuillBot is even more dangerous. It does not just suggest, it rewrites. It paraphrases away the soul of the sentence. It swaps out rhythm for neatness, fire for flatness. It does not understand that when we say: 'I am going to borrow you money,' we are not being incorrect. We are being intimate, local, rooted. QuillBot wants fluency, but not flavour. It wants output, not voice.
Their proofreading is ideological
Their proofreading is not just technical. It is ideological. It trims dissent. It disarms memory. It says: 'Consider softening your tone,' as if we are too sharp, too raw, too untrained in their image. But we were trained differently. Our street education was cracked but full of soul.
Using Grammarly is like asking a colonial governor to edit your liberation song. He will suggest changing 'freedom' to 'civil order'. Microsoft Editor will break your verses into neat administrative bullet points. And QuillBot may reword your pain into a LinkedIn update. They may delete the drumbeat altogether.
These platforms are a free pass to newspaper sub-editors — they simply copy, cut (for length) and paste.
So bring back my Bantu education English. Bring back the crooked tenses and the double negatives that know what they mean. Return my split infinitives, my hyperbole, my outrage. Bring back the brokenness that speaks whole truths of my background. I do not need correction. I need patience.
My language does not need fixing. It needs listening.
I quit proofreading software. I return to my Bantu Education English. Its structure may not be polished, but its meaning glitters.
PS: Busani Ngcaweni grew up at Inanda. At the local Gingqimboza Primary School, his English teacher never came to class — she was doing life, getting married and having babies. At Ohlange High, his English teacher from Phoenix only taught novels, asked girls to sign Whitney Houston and practised yoga, not a single grammar lesson per curriculum requirement. DM