Follow them - or fail to communicate. But, listeners, pull that dusty 10-pound dictionary down from the upper echelons of your bookshelf, and open to the preface. Writer David Foster Wallace has done that heavy-lifting, and his article in this month's Harpers is an expose of the passionate, seamy world of lexicography. Post in our Culture Forum new users click here Our guides to usage may be Bibles - but only some claim to be the savior of a suffering language.
Most people are prescriptive in their expectations .
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