Brian Parker, of Cross­parks, Dartmouth, writes:

Oh dear, ‘the lady doth protest too much, methinks’.

I refer to Val Gibbons’ ­capitalised criticism of the Weird One’s grammar in the Chronicle, November 4.

She takes umbrage at: ‘There’s too many to choose from.’ She explains her point with: ‘There are a good few’, as opposed to: ‘There’s a good few’, clearly considering the latter to be incorrect. This is a most unfortunate choice of example in making this ­particular pedantic point, because it is arguably faulted grammar.

The indefinite article ‘a’ denotes singularity, which makes the plural of the former ‘incorrect’. However, there is common usage of this form, which conveys acceptability, through stylistic preference rather than ‘correctness’. A ­similar argument applies to ‘it’s me’ and ‘it is I’. Both are ­‘correct’.

As to ‘there’s too many’, it seems to me that this is a change that is, or will shortly become, acceptable grammar through common usage.

There are occasions when the shortened form ‘there’s’ is ­preferred to ‘there is’, and this is becoming used in the plural because ‘there are’ does not shorten.

So, Weird One, I think you are ahead of the game and ­acting properly, with your colleagues, as the vox populi of this part of the county.

Furthermore, Val Gibbons asserts that, in this country, we are slipping into using

poor grammar. That is an oft-­repeated moan throughout the centuries and is always wrong.

When I went to school in the 1940s, I was taught grammar at, appropriately, a grammar school. I am pleased to say that many of the silly ‘rules of ­grammar’ that were drummed into me then are thankfully out of fashion, such as not splitting infinitives and not ending ­sentences with prepositions.

These and other artificial constraints can lead to unnecessary and often ugly sentence ­construction.

If you really think that ­grammar is deteriorating, just look at that quotation from Hamlet in my opening ­sentence. ‘Methinks’ for ‘I think’ – how ungrammatical, methinks.