Less/Fewer Rules Please

BBC:

...what remains constant, and what seems to elicit the ire of viewers more than anything else, is one topic: sloppy grammar. Everyone seems to have their personal bugbear, be it the use of "less" instead of "fewer", the split infinitive, or the use of a plural noun with a singular verb. And many feel that standards have slipped in recent years.

We thought we'd put this to the test, and invited a number of BBC journalists to demonstrate their grammatical expertise - or otherwise - on camera.

Here's what irks me about grammar and the defence of the rules of language in particular, regardless of whether the defence of artificial constraints on a fundamentally ever-changing structure are valid or not - it's not needed. If you don't understand someone, you will tell them you don't understand. If you don't understand something that is written, why does that automatically make it the fault of the writer and not of the reader? Which consensus opinion hashed out these rules in the first place? I you tell my boiled blood it makes.