atw: Re: "50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice"

Isn't it always a good rule to have a respectable level of knowledge and
understanding of the rules before one willy-nilly breaks them?  Otherwise
one ends up sounding like an uneducated, tin-eared flibbertigibbet, and it
would be true.

The positions here strike me as being very much akin to the arguments within
eduction.  That is, there are those (mostly teachers) who don't believe a
solid foundation of basic skills are required before students should be let
loose to attempt the political, social, cultural, ethnic, gender based
analytic equivalent of a somersault with a triple twist and a half pike to
finish, versus those, with ever diminishing influence, who believe that
being able to spell, for example, is essential to, and helps engender, both
thought and expression.

Surely anyone with more than a few synapses firing is capable of adhering to
or discarding rules according to their own judgment and taste.  That's only
possible if they have exposure to the rules in the first place, including
conflicting tomes.

Carolyn

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