ABSTRACT
We are quite sure that all of you will agree that (a) and (e) should not be included in a grammar of English. If you are writing a grammar of English intended for language learners you might also want to exclude (b) and (c), perhaps some of the others too, even though many people who are native speakers of English would use and accept such sentences. How would you describe these sentences? Would you call them ungrammatical or dialectal? Do you think that some of them belong more to speech than writing? The sentences (f) and (g), for example, exemplify a notorious problem in English. Many grammars would describe (f) as ‘wrong’ (or ‘bad English’) and (g) as ‘correct’ (or ‘good English’). Which of the two sentences do you think you would you use? Which would you consider acceptable English? People, even linguists, are not always good at knowing what they would and would not use: if you ask people about things like this, you will quickly find that what they say they do and what they actually do can be quite different.
