David:
I have no argument with your remarks. You present a lot of good points and ideas. Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I could have been in some of the points I was making. For example, when I said that the fluid and changing nature of language usage may be troubling for some people at times, I was thinking largely of my experiences teaching high school English.
I'll give a quick example concerning subject/pronoun agreement. According to the traditional rules of grammar, the following sentence is incorrect: Someone left their notebook in the room. Someone is singular, so the plural pronoun their is considered ungrammatical, since it doesn't agree in number with the singular antecedent. The sentence should read: Someone left his notebook in the room. In recent years, of course, it's become common and even preferable to say Someone left his or her notebook in the room. And it seems that the usage Someone left their notebook in the room is, in fact, becoming standard and accepted usage. I have no problem with this, for it's the way language works, evolves and changes. This is what I was protesting when I said the argument of "sounds right" is not dependable. Someone left their notebook sounds correct to many people, and no doubt it will become acceptable usage, if it hasn't already, but that has not always been the case. That's the point I was trying to make when I used the I've drank example. I wish I had a dollar for every former student who thought I've drank sounded better than I've drunk. And maybe I've drank will evolve into accepted and standard usage, but as of now it isn't. I think your example of split infinitives is another good example of this same point.
I'm not a straightjacket grammarian. I like the fact that writers pull and stretch and create and experiment with the language. I think the sound of lines and sentences is of paramount importance in good writing. But that's not what I was referring to when I criticized the "it sounds right" point of view. I was talking about very specific points of grammar and usage.
Your commentary made for good reading.
Regards,
Richard
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