Dear Geist,
What makes grade 5 teachers so effective at imprinting on students their dogmatic, but incorrect, opinions on grammar and usage? Not all grade 5 teachers, of course, and perhaps only those who taught years ago, but the effect lingers. As a line editor I often have to disabuse a writer of some well-known mistaken notion—never start a sentence with a conjunction, never end one with a preposition, etc.—and the writer’s eyes go wide with fear: no, the wording cannot be changed because Mr. McGregor or Ms. Pham “
.” Even when I point out (tactfully, I hope) that teachers aren’t editors, and that the stiff, formal passage is a jarring change of tone, they are almost traumatized at the prospect of changing the “drilled-in” bit. I know you give advice to writers, not editors, but can you offer any intel?

Dear Karla,
As an editor you know that self-proclaimed “sticklers,” who can be found in all vocational pursuits, are not necessarily friends of good writing, and that writers and others are often taken in by the sheer heat of sticklers’ devotion to “rules.”
Why grade 5 teachers? In the absence of any scientific data, we’re guessing that they leave a particularly strong impression not only because they are teachers, therefore seen as experts and bosses, but because grade 5 students are about ten years old. At that age, writing is less an arduous drill and more a practice with many interesting uses, and students’ personal styles are emerging, so the protocols are more likely to land and take root, especially when offered by a teacher with a drill.
We agree that the best editorial strategy is to be as convincing as possible, but to concede the point if it’s just too hard for the writer to let go.
—The Editors