In ways that certain of us are uncomfortable with, SNOOTs’ attitudes about contemporary usage resemble religious/political conservatives’ attitudes about contemporary culture. We combine a missionary zeal and a near-neural faith in our beliefs’ importance with a curmudgeonly hell-in-a-handbasket despair at the way English is routinely defiled by supposedly literate adults….We are the Few, the Proud, the More or Less Constantly Appalled at Everyone Else.
