[riverkid]

MikeNewYork: Nevertheless, you are ignoring an equally long list of authors who carefully avoid the practice.

One last point and I'll shut up.

People who carefully avoid anything in language can hardly be said to be operating in a natural fashion. Language isn't a series of memeorized rules. Real language is the absence of memorization.

Those conundrums of language usage that stump all of us here daily are the very things that flow from our mouths with no hesitation at all. We don't ponder the structures, we ponder the thoughts and the structures are chosen with an ease that astonishes those who are really willing to look.