I've mentioned before in the past during such discussions that I was unfortunate enough to be taught grammar and punctuation at a time in the sixties when some pretty radical ideas and education experiments were going on.
Well, Miz Rat, that sounds like a really bad time for learning about writing. I was teaching grammar and punctuation back in the early sixties but not what you described. Even though my grammar books go way way back, I still recognize that the language lives and changes (unlike Latin which I still regard as a thing of beauty even if it is dead). But we do have to have some standards and we ought to be familiar with what is considered the "best" even if we choose not to use it. One of my favorite quotes is from the playwright, Arthur Miller, who said that you have to know the rules in order to break them. The key is in knowing when a choice is appropriate. I'm still an old curmudgeon about some things and willing to be flexible about others. Is there anyone else besides me who still diagrams sentences to determine some usages? Is there anyone who still knows what I mean by 'diagrams a sentence'?
Jude
