Antedating of "Prescriptivism"

[Fred Shapiro]

prescriptivism (OED 1954)

1953 Thomas Pyles in _Modern Language Notes_ Dec. 580 (JSTOR)  Linguists,
who object not so much to prescriptivism per se in the instruction of the
intellectually and socially "underprivileged" as to those hoary handbook
prescriptions which have no basis in actual cultivated usage.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
   Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
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