Prescriptivism and the cinema

[Wilson Gray]

On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 4:42 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I heard a lot of prescriptivist statements in my impressionable years, but
> I've never heard the one reported by Wilson.


I heard that! The first, last, and only time that I've ever come
across this "blame is not a verb" rule was in that textbook. Well,
that's probably beside the point, given that I've never researched
prescriptive grammars. But shawl gnome sane. In general, I didn't have
a problem with "Well, you're colored," but that "rule" really took me
by surprise.
--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org