You know you’re a language nerd when you have a strong opinion about serial commas. – Author unknown

The rules of punctuation seem arbitrary. How can they not, when an apostrophe looks like nothing in this world so much as a comma that can’t keep its feet on the ground? Or when, by simply placing next to that wafting comma its twin, one creates (of all things) a quotation mark? – Richard Lederer and John Shore, Comma Sense: A Fun-damental Guide to Punctuation

I believe that every English poet should read the English classics, master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them, travel abroad, experience the horror of sordid passion and — if he is lucky enough — know the love of an honest woman. – Robert Graves (1895–1985), lecture at Oxford, quoted in Time, 1961 Decembe

Language, never forget, is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling, and pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines. – Bill Bryson, The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way, 1990