I assume by the context of my quote that we are still talking about the dangling modifier I used or similar "errors".
>This is the sense in which a lot of people parse language.
I completely disagree. You are describing a sense in which they consciously analyze language. Mental grammars are much more plastic and forgiving than you seem to suggest. I do not know a single person who, when first reading such a sentence, would not be able to derive the intended meaning from it on the grounds that the modifier has no explicit referent, and I think suggesting otherwise is far-fetched.
Sometimes perhaps a genuinely ambiguous phrase may cause the reader to review and come up with an alternate meaning or two, but it is not as if their brain says "SYNTAX ERROR" and can't continue, bringing communication to a grinding halt.
>The whole point of correctly using language is that readers don't have to jump through hoops to understand what mistake you made and why you made it (i.e. what you actually meant), which ultimately makes communication easier.
I think you are suffering from an illusion that there exists an objectively and universally correct, monolithic, Standard English.
I also think that you are on the verge of a slippery slope argument by even suggesting that a speaker-referential dangling modifier caused readers to "jump through hoops" and hindered communication.
"I know what you meant" is probably the hardest thing for any prescriptivist to admit because it immediately destroys their very arbitrary arguments about "logic" and "efficiency" of language.
My point stands that there is a huge difference between a perceived poor style choice and a genuinely ungrammatical utterance. But human beings do not naturally speak ungrammatically. There are simply dialect-dependent variations in grammar, and the more prestigious dialect will almost always be touted as "the right one" by prescriptivists, who will then say that all other dialects are "ruining the language" and "making communication more difficult". By that line of thinking it's reprehensible that different languages even exist at all.
Sorry, but you are never going to get a universally agreed-upon and practiced standard. Yes, we need some rules to have a grammar and a language, but there is a huge range of how important those rules are for communication. Saying that any old "incorrect" use of language hinders communication is, to me, a bit like suggesting that people who jaywalk in a city are liable to gridlock its transportation system.