consider this statement y Louis Bromfield, a noted American author:'If I, as a novalist , wrote dialogue for my characters which was merticulously grammatical , the result would be the creation of a speech which rendered the characters pompous and unreal.
And this one by Jacques barzun , former literacy critic for Harper's . Speech , after all, is  in some measure an expression of characters and flexiblity in its use is a good way to tell your friends from the roots'.
These are typical reactions of professional people to the old restrictions of formal English  grammar .Do the actual teachers of English fell the same way?
'Grammar is only an analysis after the facts, a post-mortem on usagge,'said the canadian economist and humorist stephen leacock in 'How to Write .'Usage comes first and usage must rule'.
One way to discover current trends in  usage is to poll a cross section of people who use the language professionally , inquiing certaiin specific and controversional expressions.A questionnaire I prepared recently was answered by eighty two such people -thirty one authors,seven book reviewers, thirty three editors and eleven profeesors of English. The results , some of which will  be detailed below , may possibly prove startling to you if you have been conditioned to believe , as most of us have , that correct English is rigid , unchangeable and exclusively dependent on grammatical rules

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