hopefully

[David Bowie]

From:    Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>

> Prescriptivism is easier for students: they want to know the rules to
> apply. They want them to be simple rules.

> I had my comp. students read Nunberg's "The Decline of English" (they
> all thought he was arguing that English grammar is declining)...

I've found David Crystal's _The Fight for English_ to be quite useful in
pointing out some of the problems with a straight-up prescriptivist
approach—and also how taking a descriptivist approach doesn't necessarily
exclude/belittle the usefulness of having conventionalized rules for
formal writing. It's quite readable by non-specialists, and has proven to
be a big hit in my syntax lite for aspiring English teachers course.

<snip>

Very truly yours,
David Bowie

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