A Moment of Sympathy for the Old Fogeys and Snoots

quotefancy.com

This morning I think I discerned in my heart a faint flicker of sympathy and fellow-feeling for judgmental prescriptive usage pontificators — the Simon Heffers, the John Simons, the people who proudly self-identify as snoots (as did both David Foster Wallace and Justice Antonin Scalia).

Such sympathizing doesn’t happen often, so I thought I’d admit to it and explain, since if you have regularly read my posts on usage you may be rather surprised.

I was reading a newspaper headline ...