What I love most about H. W. Fowler is his judgment. Fowler, with all his idiosyncrasies, has an opinion and he's not afraid to tell us. Theodore Porter points out our society's proclivity for hiding behind the mask of quantified objectivity, Quantification is a way of making decisions without seeming to decide.
Objectivity lends authority to officials who have very little of their own.
But the irony of the New Fowler, however, is that what Burchfield sets out and strives to do, he doesn't even do well. Although Burchfield attempts to be objective and descriptivist about word usages, spelling, what's accepted and what's not, and so on, he has no qualms whatsoever about being prescriptionist and convinced he's right when it comes to pronunciation. And Burchfield claims he uses his vast databases and statistical evidence to represent the usage of not only erudite Brits but of all us English-speakers around the world. Rather, the use of Fowler's name in the title of this book is a dishonor to Fowler and his fans. Edited by R.W. Burchfield.