ABSTRACT
Linguistic behavior is governed by a rigid set of social conventions. If we wake up one morning and decide to deliberately throw all these conventions to the wind, we will soon be talking gibberish, and no one would understand us. Indeed, even our best friends might think we had gone quite insane. In everyday language, we could say that we had decided to “break the rules” of English grammar. Of course, force of habit inclines us against striking off on this iconoclastic course. Having spent so many years of our lives cooperatively following the rules, it is easier to continue to follow them than to wander off into new territory. This view of linguistic rules as social conventions and habits is grounded firmly on everyday experience and common sense. I think it is a view that virtually everyone accepts.
