Grammar is a curious thing. It has been a subject of debate from classrooms to coffeehouses and living rooms to law firms. Amateur and professional grammarians tend to fall into two categories: prescriptivists and descriptivists.

Grammarians who fall into the prescriptivist camp believe the rules of grammar are etched in stone, never to be broken: Don’t split an infinitive. Never end a sentence with a preposition. “They” may be used only as a plural pronoun.