16 July 2010
John McIntyre, copy editor for the Baltimore Sun, has a post on his You Don’t Say blog outlining a very sensible approach to prescriptivism. McIntyre “gets it.” Very few people who dispense writing advice realize or acknowledge that different registers and voices are appropriate for different audiences, and the “rules” of style need to be adjusted accordingly.
And the Johnson language blog over at the Economist has a post about how prescriptive criticism of language is often used to mask ad hominem attacks.
