Craig,
   
  I love what you wrote: "I don't have much sympathy for those who believe that the language itself is going downhill and that we need to enforce our judgements on other people. Language can't be controlled by the dictionary makers, and the good dictionary makers know that." It reminds me that, as much as I love the writings of those brilliant Restoration authors, Swift and Defoe, I find their attempts to "fix" the language (fix as in, set for all time, not as in repair!) misguided at best. They would have been better off writing more meaningful fiction and satire as they were wont to do. 
   
  For the record, and because I fear that I may have been misunderstood and considered too prescriptive, I often talk my students about the inevitability of language change; but I also talk to them about using the right language for any given situation and the value of having enough skill in language to be able to switch gears when necessary. Sometimes the message gets through, I suspect. 
   
  Paul D.


"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128).

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