New York Times on the PSAT Glitch

[Mark A Mandel]

On Sun, 1 Jun 2003, Arnold Zwicky wrote:

#a sad side fact in all of this is that linguists are widely regarded
#in the media (and by more intellectual publications like the American
#Scholar, Harper's, etc.) as being partisan, even fanatic.  the problem
#is that we claim to know some truths about language, and trumpet them,
#even when common sense, not to mention the publications of talented
#amateurs, tells educated people that we are just wrong.

Is it, perhaps, also partially due to Chomsky's status as both
 (1) the only linguist most people have ever heard of and
 (2) a "partisan, even fanatic"  advocate of certain political views?

-- Mark A. Mandel