Look, one other thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the stuff you’ll read in prescriptivist screeds are matters of style. There is a lot of information that should be thought of as virtually unbreakable rules of grammar — that English word order is subject-verb-object and not object-verb-subject is not a matter of style, but rather a rule of grammar. My personal preference for saying (1) instead of (2):
(1) My favorite restaurant is located off of the highway
(2) My favorite restaurant is located off the highway
is a matter of style, not a rule of grammar. Even in situations where someone has motivation for their preference, these motivations are often flawed or based only on that person’s opinions, which might not be shared by the world at large. You probably have lots of little things like that, ways you say stuff that sounds just great to you, and you probably don’t understand why anyone would say it another way. Nevertheless, in most cases it’s probably not that your way’s any better. Don’t try to dream up reasons why it is better and why it should therefore be a rule of English grammar. Let people split their infinitives. Let them say between the three of us. Hold your tongue unless it’s a matter of more than style. Ask yourself if disobeying the grammatical “rule” you hold so dear really has a calamitous effect. If it does, go ahead and say something. If not, go put your energy toward something useful.
Motivated Grammar 
6 comments
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January 4, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Liam Quin
It seems to me that the main purpose of “rules” of grammar is to encourage a shared understanding. A split infinitive is often (not always) a sign of a sentence that, if rewritten, may be more clearly understood by more people. The fragments “located off of the highway” and “located off the highway” mean slightly different things to me: in the second case one is suggesting that the place can be reached directly via the highway, and in the first that it possibly cannot. But in informal, spoken English, one has to take into accuont a lot more of the context.
Best,
Liam
January 23, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Gabe
Liam: I agree with you that there is a subtle difference between (1) and (2), and I think most people have that intuition. The problem is that I don’t think people think the same difference exists. To me, “off of” seems more accessible from the highway than “off”. But I think the key point is that the difference rarely has a big effect on interpretation, and that’s why I don’t think it is or should be a rule.
March 31, 2011 at 9:40 pm
Rocket Gal
For me, it depends on whether you’re talking or writing. If I was writing, I would choose the first sentence as it’s a tad more formal or just seems ‘correct.’ But, in conversation, it seems ok to use the second as you can get away with a lax presentation if you’re speaking.
January 9, 2012 at 10:45 am
profling
Tut tut, Gabe. Periods always go INSIDE the close quotes, by a transposition rule per Nunberg 1983. In MLA style,however, parentheses will block that rule.
January 9, 2012 at 4:17 pm
Gabe
profling: I don’t know what article you’re citing, but regardless, you’re being foolish. I consider Pullum’s thoughts on this decisive: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/punctfree.pdf
September 10, 2012 at 8:18 pm
Shannyn Frazier
The field of forensic linguistics relies on the fact that each individual has a personal style ad distribution in the usage of function words such as “of” or “which” or whatever. In fact these distributions are so perfectly unique to each speaker that they act as a fingerprint and this distribution is admissible in court as proof of authorship of a ransom note or even to prove who wrote a work in question. Good stuff.