I would like to make a few comments.
1.  This is the Assembly for the Teaching of English GRAMMAR.  Although
some of us (myself included) are interested in the problems and processes
of TESOL, I try to avoid introducing TESOL issues although I will comment
if someone else does.  As a linguist my background is structural; my
dissertation dealt with discrepant subcategorization of nouns in English and
Spanish (establishing matrices with mass, count, and limited count nouns);
my field of highest interest is diachronic Romance linguistics (I am a
charter member of Société Internationale de Diachronie Française) with
diachronic English linguistics as a distant second.  The linguistic subfield
of diachronic onomastics, particularly anthroponomastics, occupies most of
my research time--almost none of the above is pertinent to ATEG.

2.  Grammarians are often interested in and sometimes trained in
linguistics; I freely confess that very little of my training in 
Chomskyian and post-Chomskyian grammar has had any impact on my
understanding or appreciation of grammar.  I read "Syntactic Structures"
in 1957 (my Freshman year of college) and was not at all impressed--although
I liked the "Crazy green ideas sleep furiously" and used that concept in
having students diagram similar sentences from Lewis Carroll, et al.

3.  If we disagree, there is no need for insults.  Herb and I have some
irreconcilable differences on grammar; however, I find him a gentleman as
well as a scholar.  If you find that someone is aggravating the tone of the
discussion, tune that person out or just delete.  I will confess that, when
certain persons introduce a topic, I simply delete the entire discussion.  
Remember the hypostatic law of controversy: connect a teacup and the
Atlantic Ocean and the water will rise to the same level in each.
CONTROVERSY MAKES EQUALS OF THE WISE MAN AND THE FOOL AND THE FOOL KNOWS IT.

4.  I no longer review grammar books: my mother always said that if I cannot
say something nice about a person, do not say anything at all.  For most of
the grammar books that I have seen recently, I am reminded of the evil
gangster's funeral.  When the time for eulogies came, no one stood up.
Finally his barber stood and stated, "He was an easy man to shave."  
I only review books on medieval topics now.  I just finished _Medieval
Philosophy_ and am working on _The Other Europe in the Middle Ages_.

Scott Catledge

P.S.  As a humourous aside, I wrote 'ecologues' in lieu of 'eulogies' and
did not catch it until I reread my posting--a 'cerebral flatulation' as my
dear old mother used to say.  I can imagine what certain persons would have
said had I not caught it.  "Gotcha" is not a nice game for gentlemen or
ladies--unless done with a smile.

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