The Ongoing Debate
It is in fact a great pity that the standard English debate is marred by the sort of conceptual confusions and political posturings (no matter how poorly expressed) . . .. For I think there are genuine questions to be asked about what we might mean by "standards" in relation to speech and writing. There is a great deal to be done in this respect and proper arguments to be made, but one thing is clear for sure. The answer does not lie in some simple-minded recourse to the practice of the "best authors" or the "admired literature" of the past, valuable though that writing is. Nor does the answer reside in "rules" for speech laid down by either the "educated" of any official body held to be able to guarantee spoken "correctness." The answers to the real questions will be found to be much more complex, difficult and challenging than those currently on offer. For these reasons they might be more successful.
(Tony Crowley, "Curiouser and Curiouser: Falling Standards in the Standard English Debate," in Standard English: The Widening Debate, edited by Tony Bex and Richard J. Watts. Routledge, 1999)