response 1 of 65:

Sep 4 02:15 UTC 1991

Split infinitives put the modifier closer to the word being modified.  Makes
sense to me.  It's a hold over from foreign languages where the "to" form
is actually one word.  Kind of difficult to split infinitives in that case.

response 3 of 65:

Sep 4 05:52 UTC 1991

True, a lot of grammar is modeled after Latin, but infinitive forms 
appeared long before Latin.  Most notably in anceint Greek, where 
the infinitive was just another inflected form of the verb.

response 5 of 65:

Sep 4 23:47 UTC 1991

        There're lots of ways to teach grammar.  You can teach "correct
grammar", prescriptive grammatizing, or you can teach "how to study
grammar", how to find out why people put sentences together the way they
do, and what are the different types of phrases, subsentences, parts of
speech, etc.  
        It can be useful to know the second, because you can find out things 
like how you might confuse someone with bad sentences.  (By placing the 
modifiers too far from the words they modify, for example.)  By knowing 
what the different parts of speech are -- knowing what a verb is, a noun, 
an article, etc, you can use a dictionary better, and you'll have a better 
chance of knowing what a new word means, and how it can be used.
        Knowing the prescriptive rules of grammar allows you to pass grammar
tests, and may (or may not) help you impress people.  If everyone agreed
on all the "ideal" rules of grammar, it might help to regularize the
language, so that everyone everywhere would say the same thing more or
less the same way, and anyone anywhere else would be able to understand
them.
        However, people soak up the real rules of grammar when they learn to
talk.  Prescriptive grammar is basically either making people re-learn how
to talk and write, or it's teaching them what they already know.

response 7 of 65:

Sep 5 14:25 UTC 1991

I think what some teachers and many linguists object to is the teaching of
such prescriptive forms as "correct", rather than saying "this is how you
would say it in this context.

Griz

response 9 of 65:

Sep 6 04:36 UTC 1991

If we all adhered to a strict 'grammatically correct' english, we'd still
be inflecting more words than we do.  I think there is a fine line to 
draw.  General agreement between number and tense in noun/verb structures
is something that I would consider to be important, whereas whether you
say 'The man who I saw yesterday...' as opposed to 'The man whom I saw 
yesterday...' is a little less important.

response 11 of 65:

Sep 6 14:04 UTC 1991

In the old days, the teachers didn't worry about where to draw the line.
They simply taught correct (or baseline, for the squeamish) English and
let the student decide what level of rules they wished to retain outside the
classroom. It seemed to work too. In the past 20 years, teachers have
agonis
/agonis/agonized/ over where to draw the line and have tolerate progressively
"incorrect" speech. Over the past 20 years, we have become inundated with
students who can't speak, read, or write. Do you suppose there is any
connection?

response 13 of 65:

Sep 6 21:22 UTC 1991

Not to mention that people have been bemoaning "bad language skills" since
we were evolved enough to be elitists.

response 15 of 65:

Sep 9 06:36 UTC 1991

Now, katie, I didn't even APPLY for a job at the New York Times, and I think
it's unlikely in the extreme that they'd ever hire me.

response 17 of 65:

Sep 9 15:59 UTC 1991

What's 'perfection'--keeping language stale and immutable?  Is 'perfection'
using one perfectly grammatical expression over another because it's
always been done that way?  How about keeping linguistic rules that few
people use, and which are rooted in a language we don't speak anyway?

response 19 of 65:

Sep 10 01:38 UTC 1991

 (I wasn't addressing you, Larry. I read the whole item in one swell foop
after joining it late, and I was just adding my two cents to the discussion
as a whole.

response 21 of 65:

Sep 25 15:33 UTC 1991

The descriptivist says, "Use the language as I describe it or you 
will be misunderstood."  The prescriptivist says, "Use the language 
as I prescribe it or you will be wrong."

The descriptivist sees everyone stopping at red lights and 
concludes therefrom that stopping at red lights is "standard".  The 
prescriptivist says that stopping at red lights is the law, so 
obviously everyone has to do it.

There are philosophical differences between the two, but in 
practice they're both telling me how to speak and write.  

jep is right:  Kids learn standard usage by listening and reading 
long before they learn the names of the rules they've been 
following.  We all start off as descriptivists in our native 
languages, but some of us end up prescriptivists.  We fall in love 
with the rules.

response 23 of 65:

Sep 25 16:41 UTC 1991

But at least once they learn the rules, they'll be able to see how
awkward and silly some of the new-speak is.