Thank Goodness, There's a Vicious Language Usage Catfight!

“If you didn’t already know that euphonious dichotomies are usually phony dichotomies, you need only check out the latest round in the supposed clash between ‘prescriptivist’ and ‘descriptivist’ theories of language. This pseudo-controversy, a staple of literary magazines for decades, was ginned up again this month by The New Yorker, which has something of a history with the bogus battle.”