People often reply something along these lines. I don't entirely disagree, but I have some big reservations. First, which rules? That is, does it still bother y

People often reply something along these lines. I don't entirely disagree, but I have some big reservations. First, which rules? That is, does it still bother you if a writer uses 'will' where some very stuffy people would prefer (even insist on!) 'shall'? If not, why not? If so, why? Notice that no matter which way you jump on this, you're already making choices. What about 'nauseous' and 'nauseated'? Do you insist on that distinction in writing? How about in speech? Do you correct people who say 'can' instead of 'may'? How about 'less' and 'few'? Do you say 'your being here makes me happy' or 'you being here makes me happy'? There's always going to be room for some pedantic asshat to correct you. It's up to you, however, to pick the cases where you push back, or shrug, or accept the correction quietly (because you've had the fight too often). You also have to decide who you want to impress. If you carefully rearrange all sentences so that they don't end with a preposition, you may impress the grammar school teachers and the self-satisfied pedants of the world, but you will only look silly to the professors of Linguistics over at Language Log[1]. So it's not entirely good enough to say "Just follow the arbitrary rules in order to demonstrate that you are a thoughtful, well-educated, intelligent person." It's always a case of pick your rules and your battles.