re a recent thread

[pynchonoid]

http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/story.html?id={11764CDF-7EAC-46C8-AFB5-372D5A511475}

" [...] Language bullying -- or prescriptivism, as
it's more politely called -- is conservative in the
worst sense. It advances a stuffy and old-fashioned
view of language, the rules of which it considers set
by supposed experts, such as the authors of grammar
books, rather than common usage. It is deeply
anti-populist and snobby, not to mention just plain
wrong and cranky. There are good reasons to criticize
Bush. But holding his -- or anyone else's -- grammar
to dubious standards isn't one of them. [...] Language
bullies have a bloody-minded and literal understanding
of how speech works. [...] But worst of all is the
constant abuse that is hurled at the non-standard
English of blacks and other groups, as when an old
Mississippi Delta blues singer howls, "I can't get no
lovin'." That's a double negative, bullies say, so
it's wrong. [...] "


....Now, no need for anybody to go nucular about this,
or, heaven forbid that other favorite Bush pastime,
ballistic...


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