Re: Bostonites. *ZAP*

Josh Brandt-Young wrote:
> I'm all for teaching people a standard and demanding that it be observed
> in writing: we need that in our society, and in that context it's fine to
> rant about bad usage, &c.; what I object to is the idea that those who
> can't or don't adhere to prescriptive rules are somehow "wrong."
I more or less agree with that.  Certainly there's some dialects that
would be difficult to understand if written, but some of the rules of
the standard are useless, and I'm not just talking about things like
"split infinitives" or "double negatives", I'm also referring to
archaisms like "whom".  For the standard language, the most logical
guide, it seems to me, would be the language of the educated people.
Since even educated people rarely use "whom", what's the purpose in
calling that part of the standard?  To go further, if most educated
people said things like "Me went to the store", then "I" should be
dropped as archaic.  Of course, that's not actually used, so it's
academic.

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