Proper vs. Improper English

Anybody who speaks differently than you is speaking "improper English". That seems to be how most people work. It doesn't help that we are trained as children that there is proper and improper English, which we usually call right and wrong.

I personally am very conflicted on the issue. I grew up with proper English and I learned all the rules (well, not all of them, but way more than most people know). I understand how useful it is to have a universal language and that it can only exist from standardization. I like knowing the rules, being able to use them in their right places, and especially being able to explain them. I love knowing spelling and derivations and word origins. Proper English, which is really Standard English, is comfortable.

However, I also have seen language change. I have existed during language change (we all have, but rarely recognize it until it's too late). I have studied language and I know it is impossible to stop. Heck, I know that the version of English I grew up with is so severely mangled and mutated from what English used to be that I would be a major hypocrite by suggesting that my version was proper and all others were wrong.

This is a fight that will probably never end. The best I have been able to do is make peace with that. I have also learned to just let go and do my own thing. Standard English isn't a bad thing, so there is no reason nont to do it. But if I want to use nonstandard English, assuming I am somewhere where it is acceptable, I will not feel bad about being "wrong".