We Don't Need no Steenkin' Rules

...especially when they are fallacious. 

There are plenty of things people do with language that are irksome, actually break language rules, and bring out the vigilante spirit in almost any thinking person:

An actor being interviewed says, "Between he and I."  Give me a break...  It's good that his lines are written for him.  But failure to correctly use the objective is catching on, I guess because it's regarded as cool, or maybe because they heard that idiot. 

"Where are you at?" is ridiculous. But "Where you at?" which might be disparaged by many, sounds fine to me. Call me ghetto bitch. LOL.

Repeated parts of acronyms: example: A(utomatic) T(eller) M(achine) machine, ATM machine :=P.

Less (an amount), when it should be fewer (individuals): example, less people.

"Anyways": horrible sounding, but an actual word.  Once again, I think people just think it sounds cool.  Anyways, I don't know why people can't just say "anyway."

"Irregardless":  also a word.  But, irregardless of the consequences, why not just say "regardless"?

       

"Ax" for "ask" (same as "liberry" for "library"): not even grammar...  enunciation.

BUT (and I am now violating a supposed rule of grammar), there are many "rules" of grammar that are not rules of grammar at all.  They are myths that developed from over simplifications by school teachers, medieval monks struggling to translate Latin to English, or simply people trying to impose their stylistic preferences.  You yourself have doubtless heard these rules and perhaps even ascribe to some.  But, thinking about them, you'll have to agree that all they really do is undermine the confidence of would be writers.  Good writers, on the other hand, generally discard them because the result of applying them would be stilted and unreadable verbiage.

You can't start a sentence with the word “however.” Wrong! It's fine to start a sentence with “however” so long as you use a comma after it when it means "nevertheless."

You can't start a sentence with a coordinating conjunction like "and," "yet,” or "but."  This "rule" has no historical or grammatical basis and, if applied, would inhibit rhetorical effectiveness.

You can't start a sentence with the word "because."  Because you can, LOL.  Stylistically, fragments can be useful.

You can’t end a sentence with a preposition.  “This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I shall not put.”  (Winston Churchill)  Feel free to end your sentences with prepositions.  Break the non-rule.  What are you waiting for?

You can't split an infinitive, and (its corollary) you can't split a verb phrase.  I want to boldly tell you that it's okay to split infinitives.  Splitting an infinitive is often an improvement in terms of elegance.  The rule against splitting may or may not relate back to 19th century concepts of a "prestige" form of English, or to the fact that in Latin (once the scholarly language of the world in which most treatises were written), and also in Greek, the infinitive is one word with no equivalent of the "to" marker.  The rule against splitting a verb phrase is probably an outgrowth of the rule against splitting infinitives.

A run-on sentence is a really long sentence.  Nope.  A run-on sentence can be short.  A run-on sentence simply lacks proper punctuation or conjunction.  This is a run-on sentence: "I am right he is wrong."