And this is why we all have to drop the pretense that we are somehow going to create some sort of new grammar or new linguistics that will revolutionize grammar teaching and writing.  The standard is out there, it has been for many years and standard books already tell us what there is to be taught.  The fight about traditional and modern grammar needs to be dropped utterly as the Scope and Sequence committee can make straightforward decisions about what to teach and when from a well-known body of knowledge that comes from Standard English.  We look like fools or uneducated exuberant youth in anything else.  The Chicago Manual of Style, Strunk and White, the style manuals of all publishers and academic journals and so on are waiting for us to grow up.  They are also waiting for us to be sure that students in elementary, secondary, and post-secondary schools know what is in there.  They are not waiting for a break through, a tantrum, or even a discussion of traditional vs modern grammar   They are also laughing at NCTE and their moronic stance about grammar so we don't have to feel too bad.  

Phil 


>Conclusion
>
>
>From an educational point of view, the position of Standard English 
>as the dialect of English used in writing is unassailable. (We should 
>perhaps add, however, that it has nothing whatsoever to do with 
>spelling or punctuation!) As far as spoken Standard English is 
>concerned, we could conclude that the teaching of Standard English to 
>speakers of other dialects may be commendable - as most would in 
>theory agree, if for no other reason than the discrimination which is 
>currently exercised against nonstandard dialect speakers in most 
>English-speaking societies - and possible - which I am inclined, for 
>sociolinguistic reasons (see Trudgill, 1975) to doubt. Either way, 
>however, there is clearly no necessary connection at all between the 
>teaching of formal styles and technical registers, on the one hand, 
>and the teaching of the standard dialect, on the other.
>
>
>
>References
>Chambers, J. and Trudgill, P. (1997) Dialectology. 2nd edition. 
>London: Cambridge University Press.
>Cheshire, J. (1982) Variation in an English Dialect. London: 
>Cambridge University Press.
>Giles, H. (1973) Accent mobility: a model and some data. 
>Anthropological Linguistics 15: 87-105.
>Hudson, R. and Holmes, J. (1995) Children's use of spoken Standard 
>English. London: School Curriculum and Assessment Authority.
>Kloss, H. (1967) Abstand languages and Ausbau languages. 
>Anthropological Linguistics 9: 29-41.
>Labov, W. (1966) The social stratification of English in New York 
>City. Washington: CAL.
>Labov, W. (1972) Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University 
>of Pennsylvania Press.
>Le Page, R. and Tabouret-Keller, A. (1985) Acts of identity. London: 
>Cambridge University Press.
>Stein, G. and Quirk, R. (1995) Standard English. The European English 
>Messenger 4.2: xxx 
>Trudgill, P. (1975) Accent dialect and the school. London: Edward 
>Arnold. 
>Trudgill, P. (1992) Introducing language and society. London: Penguin.
>Trudgill, P. and Cheshire, J. (1989) Dialect and education in the 
>United Kingdom. In J. Cheshire, V. Edwards, H. Münstermann & B. 
>Weltens (eds.), Dialect and education: some European perspectives. 
>Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. pp. 94-109. 
> 
>
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