There is, indeed, a rigid set of correct usages in informal contexts that
will vary somewhat according to regional dialect.  As a DEEP SOUTH native, 
I often crack up when I read pseudo-southern dialect written by a non-native
of the South.  I deliberately would make the precise distinction to which
you referred in your "was married" vs. "have been married."  One British
professor was astounded when I explained difference between "I've got to go"
= I must go; "I've gotten to go" = I have taken advantage of an opportunity.
One lady told me that the grandkids had gotten to go to Disney so often that
she did not feel that she had got to go there each time that they came. 

As far as the disconnect that you mention, it will exist until some
Department head has the knowledge and the guts to require prospective
English teachers to have a solid advanced course in English grammar--not 
the PC Mickey Mouse classes that dilute the subject by throwing in a kitchen
sink of levels of usage, variety of dialects, etc.  Although my taste runs
to Pence and Emery, any reference grammar should suffice as a text so long
as it does cover all the bases.  The extraneous subjects that I mention have
their place--but not in a one-semester English grammar course.       

Scott Catledge

-----Original Message-----
Date:    Sat, 15 Sep 2007 10:20:56 -0500
From:    Richard Betting <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: the current discussion

My response to Ron Sheen's set of twenty sentences was to ask "What am I 
looking for? Surface errors, usage or what?" The word "correct" implies 
error, so what  errors can English teachers find in them? As I read them, I 
wanted to know the context for each. Colloquially or informally we hear 
these sentences frequently. In informal contexts is there a rigid set of 
correctness in verb use? For example, " 7.    I was married twice." implies 
that the speaker does not intend to marry again. "I've been married twice" 
implies the person might consider another try. Unless the linguist's 
assumption is that the speaker are not using these past /perfect tense 
expressions consciously. I would teach present perfect as indicating 
continuing or repeated or incomplete action.

The current discussion is fascinating. I wager that many readers of recent 
ATEG posts do not understand the theories underlying the issues between 
systemic functional linguistics and formalism, among others, as approaches 
to grammar study. (I don't entirely either, but . . .) All teaching implies 
theory, yet I doubt most English teachers could clearly explain the theories

behind their own grammar teaching practice.

It seems to me that this disconnect illustrates the huge gulf between 
language theory and language/grammar teaching that exists in English, a gap 
that this discussion might illustrate.  Given their work loads, most English

teachers are not able to reduce the gap that their undergraduate study 
failed to address, even if they realize there is one.

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