re a recent thread

[Paul Mackin]

On Mon, 2003-03-31 at 10:07, pynchonoid wrote:
> 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...

A non-issue in other words.

As much a non-issue as the advisability of having a good knowledge of
something approaching standard English in one's armamentarium
(ballistic, nuclear,  chemical or biologic).

P.