> How do the regular contributors feel about adhering to rules of grammar."
I am very torn over this question, Avy. I was brought up to believe that the rules of grammar are not to be tampered with by the likes of me. I do, in fact, try to observe formal grammatical rules, especially when writing formally. (I do not claim to be 100 per cent successful. But I do try.)
However, a number of years of marking essays, the content matter of which is meritorious, but which are often deficient in grammatical probity, has made me revise my opinions a little. I have come to the conclusion that, so long as the meaning is crystal clear, with no possibility of ambiguity, and so long as the aesthetics of the language are not too badly trampled upon, I should no longer look too harshly down my nose at good, intelligent, hard-working students who use prepositions to end sentences with, (or even clauses, like what I've just done) or who feel obliged to sometimes split infinitives. Even the comma, my favourite punctuation mark, may be omitted at times without destroying anything other than my sense of propriety.
I also accept American orthography, so long as it is consistently used. I enjoy the Americanisms that have entered the English language - it would be churlish not to accept the spellings from the same source.
(I've just noticed that the SC has "orthography" as "orthopedic" - some of the writing I read is decidedly pedestrian, so I suppose there is some justice here. And Avy is "awad" - which adds a certain lustre to the soubriquet.)
