This school of thought, which ruled the day in the 1950s and ’60s, says we need a Big Book of Grammar No-Nos and that everyone who doesn’t follow those rules is wrong.

In our common culture, grammar has taken on at least three sets of meanings and associations. It still refers to the etiquette of writing and reading, the conventions that allow us to create a ...

Basic grammar books have existed since the 16th century, but it wasn’t until the 18th that guides like Robert Baker’s “Reflections on the English Language” (1770) and James Elphinston’s ...