See our other conversation too; I won't repeat those things here (my fault for starting two threads). > Most of the classic grammatical rules taught in schools

See our other conversation too; I won't repeat those things here (my fault for starting two threads). > Most of the classic grammatical rules taught in schools were never rules in the English language in the first place: they were borrowed from Latin because Latin was perceived as being "better". That's why they have to be taught—they're not naturally part of spoken English. I'm aware that rhetoric in the Early Modern period (~16th-17th centuries) was based at least partly on Latin and Greek rhetoric. Rhetoric isn't grammar - rhetoric is about style and persuasion - and I wasn't taught rhetoric in school. I don't recall any Latin-style grammar in school either, and Latin grammar is much different - no set word order and word endings, not order, determine parts of speech (e.g., in a Latin sentence the subject could be anywhere; you find it by word endings. English lacks word endings so the example is missing something, but the Latin word order 'dog bites person' could mean 'person bites dog', depending on the endings of 'person' and 'dog', and 'person dog bites' or any other combinatoric possibility could mean the same), much more genderized, etc. How could that be taught as English grammar? > Double negatives had to be rooted out by force (again, because Latin doesn't allow them) and still persist in most non-standard dialects because they're a natural part of English speech. They're instinctive but confusing, IME and IMHO. That's at least one reason - the only reason I know - that they are disliked. E.g., 'did you not fail to eat the apple?' 'Yes.' People don't communicate very well without some training and skill.