It doesn't matter who says they are not correct, it only matters if they are correct or not. There a rules that govern the English language, and they need to be consistently applied. Adverbs, not adjectives, modify verbs. This is true, the lack of a defining academic body notwithstanding.
All of the (respectable) ones that I know of are based on usage, though. The days when a group of grammarians could dictate correct grammar by fiat were in reality over before either of us were born, although it has been taking a while for schools to catch up. By and large linguists don't recognise such a thing as "incorrect" usage. The closest they come is "non-standard", but they recognise that there are many different standards. [/quote] There are also sentences that do not fit the formal grammar, but don't violate any formal grammar rules either, As I said earlier, the formal grammar for English is incomplete, and always will be. This is partly due to the fact that English, like other spoken languages, is a context-sensitive grammar, which means the parse cannot be determined uniquely for all sentential forms.[/quote] But who says that the English of the formal grammar is "correct"? Linguistics was my major on my second undergrad degree (and I covered formal languages on my only postgraduate degree). I agree that the detail of the language theory is beyond the scope of a writing forum, but when somebody asks a question that falls very certainly into the grey area then I think it's well within the scope of a language forum to explain that there really is a grey area, that this really is in that grey area, and that those who insist that there is a right and wrong about it are just whistling Dixie. I don't know if that was addressed to me, but I don't feel bad about it because I know that "correct" and "incorrect" are strictly meaningless when applied to English, although they can be a convenient (if dangerous) shorthand. In the past, yes, languages regulated by common usage have tended to drift into different dialects. However, mass communication seems to have reversed that trend and dialects are now tending to converge. Also, if the "rule" is known by relatively few and common usage is -- well, common, then it's the common usage that is the version that helps with ease of communication across a broad spectrum of speakers. The need for mutual comprehension is a powerful force preventing the fragmentation of language, so such fragmentation only tended to happen between groups that had little interaction with each other. In these days when I can (and do) listen to Canadian radio stations via the internet from my home in England, it's much harder to find such isolated groups. What does it mean to say "they are correct or not"? Consistency of application of rules has never been much of a feature of English! I agree, in terms of what would be considered within the range of "standard" forms of English. Now ask yourself: what makes it true?
There's an interesting paper by a guy in the Yale University Department of Cognitive Science on this very issue, called The Extinction of Masculine Generics. I saw this on a writing blog called The Passive Voice. Apparently we can't post links on these threads, so I'll post them to my blog (hopefully that is allowed.) If you click on my name, go to my profile and look at my blog entries, you can click on them to see the article. If they're removed, and you're still interested, PM me and I'll PM you the links.
Actually, not bristling at this answer at all, because I think we're in closer agreement than you might expect. I am of the school that common usage does indeed define correct, but there is a process of acceptance that moves a bit more slowly than common usage. We might say that there is a usage-based "descriptive" definition of how language is used and a slower-paced "prescriptive" definition of how language ought to be used. (This difference in thinking is embodied in the holy war that erupted with the publication of Webster III. Webster III went "descriptive," and the American Heritage Dictionary was a "prescriptive" reaction against the philosophy behind Webster III.) In my fiction, I am 100% in the descriptive camp. If it reflects the way people talk, then it's the way I try to write it, my high school English teachers be damned. If I am writing non-fiction or work-related prose, then I kowtow to my English teachers and feel good about it. I dot the prescriptive I's and cross the prescriptive T's.
