Bad grammar causes actual physical distress in others, study reveals.

Your going to want to read this.

New research finds that when people are subjected to poor grammar, it actually causes them stress — and even initiates a “fight or flight” response.

A lack of proper speech or penmanship sets off several triggers within the automatic nervous system (ANS) — a network that controls the body’s unconscious processes — according to the University of Birmingham.

Heart rate variability — or HRV, which measures the time in between beats — was used as the primary metric to determine how linguistic liabilities impact a person’s physical being.

When relaxed, HRV is commonly less regimented — and it only becomes regular during times of stress, researchers noted.

The more grammatical errors a person heard coincided with the strict regularity of their heartbeat, an indication of stress.

Hearing or reading those cringeworthy errors triggers two (not to or too) pieces of the ANS that are known as the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

“Simply put, the sympathetic nervous system activates the ‘fight or flight’ response during a threat or perceived danger, while the parasympathetic nervous system controls the ‘rest and digest’ or ‘feed and breed’ functions of the body,” principal study investigator Dagmar Divjak said.

“Our findings show that [the ANS], too, responds to cognitive demands, and this suggests that cognitive effort reverberates through the physiological system in more ways than previously thought.”

Just over a decade ago, researchers at the University of Illinois commonly connected grammar sticklers to having a form of OCD called Grammatical Pedantry Syndrome. The brain activity of the verbal buffs showed similarities to obsessive-compulsive behavior.

“The results of this study bring into focus a new dimension of the intricate relationship between physiology and cognition,” Divjak said. “The relation between language cognition and the autonomic nervous system has so far received less attention.”

Now, the latest report looks to further pursue evidence that words matter — and may actually hurt us.

“This study provides us with a new method for tapping into aspects of cognition that are not directly observable,” the professor added. “This is particularly valuable in work with language users who are unable to verbally express their opinion due to young or old age, or ill health.”