Sentence Fragments and Run-on sentences

[MMI]

Instant response: phrases can be written without verbs, for example - instant response, showing that a phrase can be used in writing, although you say it can't:-

What an incredible day! (No verb, so not a sentence. Allowed only in speech.)

(And notice that you yourself followed your illustration with two more written phrases.)

Meanwhile, I confess to my inability to see how ones in the sentence you snorted could possibly be confused with the possessive form of the pronoun one without an apostrophe.

I concede that the "rules" require some possessive pronouns other than one do take an apostrophe. I oversimplifed and didn't check. That wasn't bafflegab - it was arrogant laziness. But my mistake makes my case for me: English grammar can be confusing, and for that reason the rules deserve to be flouted. It doesn't have to be possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives. It can be the use of the subjunctive, or when and whether to drop the -m from whom (I bet Strunk requires -m all the time, but it's quite a rarity in 21st Century English). If ship is both feminine and neuter, why is it regarded as poor grammar to refer to the ship as both she and it at the same time? Why is ship feminine anyway: boat isn't? Why is it also acceptable to use they in the 3rd person singular (I wonder it Strunk allows it: it's everywhere in today's language)? These aren't questions on the "fringe" - you object to those (why?). They arise every day in every aspect of writing. Books and books have been written on the idiosyncrasies of the English language, and much disagreement ensues. That couldn't happen if it was all neat and tidy. You have yourself said there is (are?)any number of difficult bits that could make a person's head ache. They're only there because they are useful or because someone who has taken the authority to himself to do so, says so. If they are useful, fine. If they are there because someone says so, then who cares?

My point isn't that there are no rules, or that they are all useless - that's just you belittling me again. It's just that the rules aren't binding on everyone all the time. You can see that I generally adhere to them, but I do not consider myself compelled to. And I don't think you need a qualification to break the rules, be that a doctorate in Lingusitics or a successful publishing record. No-one, no-one at all is qualified to say this rule or that one cannot be broken. Only the sense of what you are trying to say governs how you say it. If you think you can say something better by breaking the rules, go for it.

Sounds like a bitter bit of sour grapes to me.

Maybe it does, but it isn't.