@Brus - OK, I apologise, "despise" was too strong a word and I was a bit harsh. But you do seem to use words like "ugly" and "terrible" rather a lot when discussing dialect expressions or grammatical constructions you don't approve of.

And you say that "We all know that hardly anyone uses correct English in informal situations". I disagree, and so would any linguist. Hardly anyone uses formal grammar in informal situations, that's true, but that doesn't mean we're not using correct grammar, just grammar of a different register. (And in fact there aren't that many differences between formal and informal grammar anyway - and most of those are to do with the use of pronouns).

For me, formal really does mean formal. And that doesn't necessarily include the classroom or the broadcasting studio. In an English class children should learn Standard English, but I see no reason why teachers shouldn't use the dialect they share with the children to talk about science, or even Standard English - some studies have shown that children do better at Standard English when a comparative approach is used. Perhaps you've seen the film 'Kes'; was the teacher a worse teacher because he used dialect with the boy? I think not. Because he was making real contact with him; something the other teachers hadn't managed to do.

I heartily welcome the expansion of regional accents on British radio and TV and see no reason why a bit more dialect shouldn't slip in as well. After all, that's how most people speak in Britain and we are quite used to hearing dialect in drama and comedy programmes. Standard English is not better than regional dialects, just more appropriate in certain social situations. But times change. Businessmen who use Standard English with their clients may well chat in dialect with their colleagues. With some clients they will use a more formal register than with others. And language (in Britain at least) has been getting less formal for the last fifty years or so.

As for Geldorf's outburst, I wasn't talking about grammar but about register. The F-word is not normally considered acceptable pre-watershed fare.

And I'm still baffled by your comment - "Is 'Pain in the English' the right forum for arguing that it doesn't matter whether it is correct? " - for a start, I don't think anyone was arguing that, but I was certainly arguing that there are times when idiom takes precedence over formal grammar. And your definition of what is correct and not correct is very different from mine (for example 'singular they'), and from the norms of TEFL, for example. So I think it is exactly the right forum for discussing what we mean by correct, and and how much importance we should give to formal grammar.

Our philosophies on language are very different, and no doubt we will continue to cross swords. But I'll try to temper my language in future.

@porsche - from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary for sit:

1. intransitive - to rest your weight on your bottom with your back vertical, for example on/in a chair - "He went and sat beside her."

2. transitive - sit somebody + adverb/preposition to put somebody in a sitting position - "She sat him down in front of the fire with a hot drink."

The standard use is intransitive - you don't sit yourself, you just sit.

This page on "MLA Formatting Quotations" at the Purdue Online Writing School should answer all your questions:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/03/

Not in answer to your question, but as a matter of interest, in Britain we usually do it the second way Max_Eliott mentioned - single quotation marks on the outside, double quotation marks for nested quotations. But I've never seen triple quotes. We also use different punctuation, so called "logical punctuation", but that's a different story, although its use seems to be increasing in the US:

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2011/05/the_rise_of_logical_punctuation.html

@J.Alexandre - and then there's the saying - "The more things change, the more they stay the same"

@Max-Eliot - it's just an idiom. And yes, of course it's about comparison of two things - but one where there's not really much difference.

@ J.Alexandre - Thanks for your reply, which was rather more diplomatic than my comment. Talking of oxymorons, my English teacher's favourite expression was "Now, then he said, giving me a pretty ugly look", and I'm reminded we also have the expression "a deafening silence". English is just like that sometimes.

@porsche - A couple of things - 'As in all the other examples, "was sitting" is the past progressive (continuous, state of being); "was sat" is the past perfect (discrete action, action verb).' - that's a bit at odds with what you (correctly) said on another post, that "had he had breakfast?" was past perfect. "Was sat" can't be anything perfect as all perfect forms involve the auxiliary "have". There are only two possible standard grammatical explanations - it is a passive construction, or an adjectival participle (the explanation I favour).

You also suggest that "I was sat" means by someone or myself. But in English we don't usually use passive constructions for actions we do to ourselves, where other languages might use a reflexive. We don't say "This morning I was cut while I was shaved" unless we've been to visit a barber. We might say informally "Sit yourself down", but we wouldn't say "please, be sat". There is, I grant you, of "Please be seated", but I imagine that is an exception, and originally meant that someone would "seat" you, as in a restaurant.

@Brus - I'd love to be at the job interview where someone says "Hey, you lot sat in the corner!" - You say that "the users of such ugly expressions are diminished in the opinion of the audience who may be job interviewers..." - Most of us have a sense of register and know when certain expressions are appropriate, and when they're not.

And as for "potential donors to worthy causes, who will be put off" - Hardly; potential donors don't seem to be quite as po-faced as you give them credit for. At the first Live-Aid concert, broadcast live on prime-time TV, the BBC announcer was about to read out the address where donations could be sent, when Bob Geldorf interrupted with "Fuck the address, let's get the numbers!" - After his outburst, giving increased to £300 per second. (Wikipedia).

You ask "Is 'Pain in the English' the right forum for arguing that it doesn't matter whether it is correct? We all know that hardly anyone uses correct English in informal situations, but we should look to to ensure that people have a chance to know what is correct so that when it matters, especially in formal situations, we may use it." - I have no problem with teaching people to use more formal language when it is appropriate, but I hotly contest that only formal usage is "correct". As the author of the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language has said, "informal is normal". To say that the everyday informal language spoken by the majority of educated speakers is incorrect is to totally misunderstand what grammar is: the syntax we use to be able to be mutually understood. What you mean by "correct" is not how linguists understand "correct". "I my dog for a walk took" is incorrect; no native speaker would say it. "Me and John are going to the pub", on the other hand, is just a matter of register, or formality. And now you seem to be questioning whether 'Pain in the English' should be the forum for discussing things that don't come into your narrow idea of "correctness". Are you suggesting that those of us who don't share your prescriptive views of the English language should just shut up?

In any case it's "Pain in the English", not "Pain in the Grammar". English is about a lot more than grammar. It is also about idiomatic, natural, everyday language, something you seem to despise. It must be hard going through life with all this ugliness around you.

First of all it's an idiom, so it doesn't really need much justification. And in any case it's only used informally; nobody's going to write it in an academic essay!

But secondly, it's far from meaningless; it's like saying - "Well, these two things (whatever they are) may look different, but as far as I'm concerned they're more or less the same." - "same difference" makes perfect sense in this context. And it's efficient - just two words.

Example form Longman Dictionary - 'I could mail the letter or send a fax in the morning.' - 'Same difference. It still won't get there on time.'

It's a bit like saying "six one, half a dozen the other" - another colloquial expression which needs no justification, or do you think that's "a junk phras" too?

"Is there any validity in this phrase, outside modern colloquialism?" - isn't modern colloquialism validity enough? And it can hardly be meaningless when everyone understands what it means.

@Brus - what you are referring to is "singular they", and may be an "unhappy clash of singular/plural" to you, but for many of us is a much more elegant solution than "the caller withheld his or her number".

There is nothing ungrammatical about singular they, just as we use "you are" with singular meaning, and it is the natural follow-on to impersonal pronouns such as "anybody, everybody" etc - "If anybody calls when I'm out, ask them to leave a message". This is absolutely standard in British English when the sex of the person is unknown, and is used for example in passport application forms. It is also pretty common in American English too; even AP have now dropped their objection to it.

What's more, singular they has a long and illustrious history in English, going back at least to Chaucer (and long before political correctness, before you bring that one up) :

"And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame, they wol come up ..."

and including:

Jane Austen - "I would have everybody marry if they can do it properly"
Thackery - "A person can't help their birth"
Orwell - "We can only know an actual person by observing their behaviour"

And it's even sometimes used when the person's sex is known:

"There's not a man I meet but doth salute me as if I were their well-acquainted friend" (Shakespeare)
"No man goes to battle to be killed. But they do get killed" (George Bernard Shaw)

I'm sorry that natural idiomatic English should sound so terrible to you.

@FD - What right have you to call other people ignorant? You are obviously not an expert on language, as anybody who classes others as "ignorant" simply because they speak differently is only displaying their own ignorance of how language and dialects work. And you're obviously not an expert on futurology, as changes in the way people speak have not the slightest influence on our future.

One thing, I bet that those who say "conversate" don't make fatuous and snobbish remarks like these about other people's language the way you do. I'm afraid you say more about yourself than about them.