In this corner …

… The American Scholar: Rules Versus Rules: What <em>The New Yorker</em> Got Wrong - Jessica Love. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

In truth, prescriptivists and descriptivists do not really disagree over the facts—whether or not there are rules (of either persuasion)—but over emphasis, namely, how debates about language should be framed for public discourse. When we lament the loss of “good grammar,” or the decline of the English language, we make a statement that some dialects and stylistic choices are inherently better than others. Nobody doubts that some dialects and styles are more effective for communicating with a mainstream or formally educated audience, something we’d do well to consider before firing off that op-ed or composing a cover letter. I even acknowledge that having a “house style” into which prose is converted for the World of Ideas is, on the whole, convenient.