"There was two Mini Cooper parked in front of my house", or "there WERE two mini coopers"?

I think the question deserves discussion.

It seems that you have, at least inferred, a major problem with prescriptive teaching because it perpetuates a "lie".

I am just curious at which point we should be teaching linguistic theory to children.

Admittedly I am not "up to speed" as you say with the issue at hand. I wonder how terribly much it has stunted by intellectual growth, to be so ignorant in the ways of my language.

So am I right in assuming that you disagree with prescriptive teaching because it perpetuates a judgement of persons based on conformity to a linguistic standard?

I think you really have to get up to speed, Matt.

I simply see a competing interest in having communication standards, in order to avoid confusion (as when attempting to learn).
I just wanted to explore the interplay of competing interest in the roles language is tasked with.

Could it be more helpful to have more benevalent mavens?

It won't...which is why I do not do it. When I do it, I simply offer what I consider to be the answer they are looking for.

“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph should contain no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subject only in outline, but that every word tell.

For you to interpret what I wrote the first time as saying that I lie sometimes...is an absurdity.

Frank: When I do offer a response to a person who asks a question about grammar, I simply offer what I consider to be the answer they are looking for.

I understand all of it. Why do you think that I don't?

The Elements of Style, Strunk & White.

April 17, 2009
50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice
By Geoffrey K. Pullum

April 16 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of a little book that is loved and admired throughout American academe. Celebrations, readings, and toasts are being held, and a commemorative edition has been released.

I won't be celebrating.

The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students' grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it.

http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/25497

One thing is non-standard speech being acceptable on a personal level, whenever one chooses to do so. Another thing is telling a non-native learner of a language that non-standard speech is acceptable, and that prescriptions for standard speech are ignorant of the language. This second instance is derelict and irresponsible.

The past tense form of "run" is illogical in the face of the regular past tense phoneme of English /ed/ which occurs much more frequently than the various irregular past tense forms of English.

You're lying by omission, again, big time, Frank.

I did read the Pinkerton [??] paper.

It seems to me that prescriptivist teaching has a crystallizing effect on language.

It seems to me, that teaching based on a descriptive study of a language is more malleable.

This malleability, however, may not keep the language universal. Just as in any system subject to selection pressures, isolated populations will tend to drift apart (in this case linguistically). Without intimate linguistic contact between English speaking populations the language will split. We may truly become "separated by a common language".

This may be great for linguistic researchers, but not so great for other professionals trying to communicate with each other.

Could it be more helpful to have more benevolent mavens?
Mavens who are descriptivists, who monitor the global English language and periodically prescribe the new more efficient form.