All good points.
I have been and am still certified to be an English Teacher (secondary level) in teh State of Texas. I won't claim to be a passable or good writer; People have said that I am one or both of those, but I have only one published work under my belt, and due to contract and other SNAFUs that were/are entirely my own fault, I have yet to be paid for anything. On top of it all, I am constantly made to look absolutely clueless and foolish by my own execrable typing skills - not to mention an obsession with past characters, and a tendency to make then a bit more powerful, and to grow a bit more into more power than might be acceptable in a novel format. I try not to God Mode, but sometimes I fall into that trap, especially with villains who are desinged to be of the recurring sort (Merovingia, Morganthe - mine, not D&D's - and Handthorpe are all perfect cases in point, I somewhat shamefacedly admit).
I tend to not make any bones about people's grammar. A lesson learned while working as a tutor and various levels of instructor in a couple of writing labs in college, coupled with my actual bachelor's degree (basically a melding of technical writing and linguistics) is that
1.grammar tends to take care of itself as long as the writer decides to learn proper grammar as he or she goes along. Trying to correct someione's grammar by constant redirection tends to annoty people and turn what should be a pleasurable or at least tolerable experience into an onerous chore. I'll correct a formal student of mine because that's what a teacher does, but the people I RP or write collaboratively with are equals, not students or subordinates. They have their style and grammar, and I have mine. All of the people whom I did Steam London with have improved vastly since I first started writing with them a few years ago (sorry about the gaffe; I really don't mean to be insulting or to give a backhanded compliment).
2. "proper grammar" varies from field to field, and also from one nationality to another (such as American versus British, for example). Contrary to what many people will tell you, there is no one set grammar that is THE one and only right one. Yes, there are certain language-wide standards by which people tend to judge one's intelligence and level of education, but write in more than one or two fields (say, any of several scientific disciplines vs. Computer Science, or perhaps Business versus the utter minefield of career academia), and you will find out very quickly that "proper grammar" tends to be whatever the boss, dean, or lead professor says it is. Disagree with them? Sure, some will let you do so, but many have serious trouble with such an attitude. You just might find yourself being right, unemployed (or untenured), and utterly starved.
In short, grammar and all of that are important, but let's try to remember that everybody writes differently, and that no one style is the only one that is right. "Tolerance rules," I suppose one could say.
