The truth seems to be that they [teachers of grammar] were victims of a mighty hoax, one of those true belly-rumbling impostures which a workaday world can but seldom afford.
Charlton LairdGrammar is not a set of rules; it is something inherent in the language, and language cannot exist without it. It can be discovered, but not invented.
Charlton LairdBabies and language are the essential ingredients of civilization, and speakers of language no more know where it came from than babies know where they come from.
Charlton LairdThe great arbiters of language are the women who speak it in the presence of children... What the women pass on to the next generation is "right" and what they do not bother to pass on to their children sooner or later becomes "wrong.
Charlton Laird