authority for prescriptions

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 2/24/04 9:40:39 PM, zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU writes:

<< i don't think i can say this more clearly.  if you want to think i'm a
blinkered prescriptivist asshole, so be it. >>

I can't imagine anyone in her right mind thinking bad thoughts about Arnold
Zwicky, who surely is one of the nicest persons--and very best minds--in
linguistics in my generation. I apologize for any invidious implications, which were
unintentional.

CHOICE is a journal that, as I recall, uses very small type and contains
multitudinous entries. However, they could save more space by following the
practice found in LANGUAGE: simply using the authors' initials. Thus "Shuy, Wolfram,
and Riley (1968)" would be just "SW&R." If CHOICE's general practice is to
refer to joint-authored books by the name of the first author alone, then I
would agree that the practice is in violation of what most (all?) style manuals
say. Or maybe they just made a mistake?

One related practice that can confuse things even more: authors sometimes use
the singular in references because they are thinking of the work and not the
authors, e.g., "Shuy, Wolfram, and Riley (1968) says, ..." As an editor, I
normally "correct" this  to "say," if only because such authors never use the
singular when the very is "write."