PSAT Glitch

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 03:43:32PM -0400, Dennis R. Preston wrote:
> I'm afraid I'm on arnold's side here (though I will refrain from
> referring to arnold pronominally since I first mentioned arnold with
> a possessive). Why does mention by one silly high school teacher make
> this "stand to reason" that other high school teachers might be
> equally silly? Since there is nothing to enforce (except what this
> one person made up), how could "some others" be enforcing it?

But there isn't "nothing to enforce". As the MWDEU entry shows, there
are indeed some usage books and grammars out there that regard this
as an error. It's not something made up by this one teacher.

I don't know if this "rule" is indeed found in texts used by high-school
students, but it does seem plausible that this could be the case.

I also don't know for this purpose what an "error" is; if a single
book, published at any time, calls something an error is it an error
for the purposes of the SAT? Does it have to be called an error in
five books, which must include one of Fowler, Follett, or Quirk?

Jesse Sheidlower
OED