Actually, my post WAS an effort to bring the world to an end and thus avoid all the essays I'll have to mark and grade next week . . . . 
On Sep 21, 2011, at 5:18 PM, Dick Veit wrote:

> The assumption in several posts that there can only be one variety of English for every occasion flabbergasts me. Aren't we all masters of many registers? In an earlier post I wrote that one language phrase "bugs the hell out of me." I deemed that informal expression to be appropriate in this forum, just as I would consider it inappropriate in many others. I know the difference. You do too. Your language in writing journal papers is identifiably different from your language in an email to colleagues and different from your speech in conversing with friends while watching a football game or in talking on the phone with your insurance agent. You have no trouble making the adjustments. That is what being a sophisticated user of language is all about.
> 
> I taught writing for forty years, and my goal was always for students to master the principles of formal written English. There are accepted conventions that educated people need to learn. Another goal was for them to understand different registers and to know which is appropriate to use in different situations. And yes, students can master that too.
> 
> When someone in this forum observes that an informal expression is grammatical in a certain register or dialect, they are simply describing what they observe and not making a moral judgment. Such an observatrion doesn't mean that (1) they do not believe in teaching formal written English, (2) they favor teaching students to write Ebonics, or (3) the world is coming to an end.
> 
> Dick
> 
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