I slightly disagree on the specific point, but agree on the broader point. Formal grammar is not merely a notation for expressing linguistic rules that inciden

I slightly disagree on the specific point, but agree on the broader point. Formal grammar is not merely a notation for expressing linguistic rules that incidentally makes them appear akin to maths, it's a theory about what language is - a phenomenon rooted in, and best modelled by, formal logic. The reason formal grammar looks familiar to programmers is because computer science has borrowed tons of concepts from linguistics, concepts originally aimed at modelling human language. I agree with you on OOP. In a way, popular ideas about language are not unlike OOP: naive models with inherent contradictions that inevitably devolve into an incoherent mess. Ultimately, a person with a naive conception of how words, objects, and ideas interact is going to make a mess of trying to systematise virtually anything.