A lament

The joke goes:
Two people were engaged in conversation.  They were exchanging information about each other: where each had gone to school, who the family members were, etc.  To end the conversation, one asked the other "Where are you from."  The second person snidely remarked, "I'm from a place where they don't end sentences with a preposition."

Well, who's wrong here?  You could say that a Latinate rule exists in English not to end a sentence in a preposition.  But that was Latin.  The grass roots of English syntax are from Anglo-Saxon.  Rules are a little different in that source.  Or you could say that historical linguistics doesn't matter.  The acceptable threshold of English usage of ending a sentence with a preposition is very clearly over 75% (closer to 98%).  What dictates a rule - history or usage?  Obviously usage.  So, the first person could have ended the conversation with "Sorry, you  must be speaking of that non-standard, Latin-based, 2% dialect called 'proper' English. Would you like to learn American English?"

Yesterday I was around a person who decided to join a religious denomination which required a covenant to be taken to be a member of that church in addition to the normal Christian creed so that he could be held accountable.  I don't even have words for such a surrender of personal freedom because he doesn't have the discipline to trust himself to be a good person.

What I wouldn't give to be around a creative, efficient, giving, cheerful, free-spirited, consistent, tender-hearted, strong, smart, and open soul...  instead of those who keep this rule and that rule and a hundred thousand other rules...  who stifle others from thinking on their own...  who joylessly move through life robotically, emotionlessly...  who wear ankle-length skirts with tennis shoes...  What I wouldn't give.