where "right" and "wrong" come from

[Laurence Horn]

>  > How lucky y'all were to have Miss Smith to tell you what was
>right and what=20
>  > was wrong! But how did SHE know?
>  >
>I don't have the slightest idea, and how clever of you to have asked the
>question I never thought to ask?  I know that she came from somewhere in
>the South, because she didn't sound that far different from the rest of
>us.  Perhaps she had the same school teachers that others of that
>generation did -- good handwriting and spelling and grammar skills drilled
>into them by a teacher who probably did no more than graduate from high
>school somewhere!
>
>Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg <eulenbrg at u.washington.edu>
>
If I may presume, I suspect Ron (and Dennis) would then ask,
quasi-rhetorically, where *those* teachers obtained their notion of
proper usage.  Is there any non-arbitrary way to define "good
grammar"?  If we think of "correct" grammar as being like "correct"
styles in clothing or interior decoration or arrangement of the
dining table, the arbitrariness--in telling you what was right and
what was wrong--becomes clear...

larry