> > If grammar rules should reflect usage, can anything somebody uses be wrong?
>
> If I want to present a similar false dichotomy, I'd say if grammar doesn't reflect usage, it can never change.
>
> Obviously there's a middle ground. "Reflect usage" is not the same as "everything anyone says is correct."

I get what you're saying, and my question there wasn't entirely serious. But your argument is often used by others as a justification for either ignorance of or disregard for sound grammatical rules. That is, it's not a great defense of split infinitives. And even if it could be in theory, the prevalence of the opinion that split infinitives are wrong suggests that such a rule wouldn't be entirely unfounded in usage.

I have very definite ideas about what's proper English grammar and what isn't, but my problem has always been an inability to defend many my opinions in an objective sense. But something you said earlier triggered a train of thought that seems to click with me.

Basically, it's this: because rules of grammar (at least to an extent) reflect usage and describe a language that already exists (as opposed to language being initially defined by rules, as with Esperanto or C++ or any other "artificial" language), then it seems to be that the division between grammatical correctness and stylistic correctness may really only be a matter of degree, with a thick gray area in between.

It fits with my thinking on split infinitives, for example, which is precisely what Darien said: they're not grammatically incorrect, but in many cases they're stylistically ugly enough that they might as well be.

As was mentioned in this thread, one can devise some pretty convoluted, inscrutable writing that is still grammatically correct. I would submit that using such language is at least as wrong, if not more so, than employing an understandable sentence with what is technically a breach of grammar.

Yes, "stylistic badness" is a subjective call, but aren't we already establishing that the rules of grammar are frequently subjective calls, too? And if a syntactically correct but utterly inscrutable sentence registers as poor use of a language to a preponderance of the speakers of the language, doesn't that subjective judgment carry as much or more weight than a demonstrable violation of grammar that fewer pick up on?

Conclusion: go ahead and split your infinitives, and I'll defend your grammatical correctness -- while denouncing at least the awkward and easily-avoidable split infinitives as poor enough uses of language that they might as well be grammatically incorrect for all the practical difference it makes.