[RickOShay]

I agree you are getting a little too fired up over this. My original argument with robhol was that おやすみなさい is not used in the imperative ie..
You gave me this definition which i read..."The imperative mood (abbreviated imp) expresses direct commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests tell the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperative_mood.

So maybe I misunderstood something in there.. but whether it is to mean "Go to bed!" or "Please go to bed." (requests or commands) that is not how おやすみなさい is used. That was my argument. Then I mistakenly went on to imply that adding お to a なさい phrase is not correct. Upon further research I realized that was wrong, but I wanted to confirm its common usage. Which I found the yahoo link about and confirmed with two other native speakers that to them, it sounds old... and that おやすみなさい is not used as a request or command which is my understanding of what imperative means, and unless i have misread the definition you gave, that is what you are saying it means.

Now when it comes to sources, I am curious about the contradiction. I mean I talked to two other native speakers who confirmed what the yahoo link i showed said. But your authoritative source says otherwise... but my question is how does a native speaker's opinion, let alone 3, not hold any weight as you are suggesting? If I talk to 20 people tomorrow and they all confirm what I said.. are they all wrong? Anyhow like I said you basically already proved me wrong about the grammatical usage of おーなさい. So unless you still contest with me about using おやすみなさい in the imperative (not about being in imperative form but having imperative meaning) (as per the definition you gave me) then there is really nothing let to argue about is there?