A marvelous discussion of gung-ho prescriptivism in language from a chapter by my professor, Lesley Milroy, in Authority in Language:
"In an essay entitled 'The Corruption of English' (1980), Simon blames structural linguistics and literary structuralists for an alleged decline in language use and for permissive attitudes to language: 'What this is, masquerading under the euphemism "descriptive linguistics"...is a benighted and despicable catering to mass ignorance under the supposed aegis of democracy.' His essay is outspoken and full of emotive language ('pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo', 'rock-bottom illiteracy', 'barbarians', 'vandalism', etc. ).
...Critics of this kind...have an apocalyptic view in which the forces of good and evil do battle to capture the linguistic souls of our descendants."
How epic!
-Dara
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
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