Is it Dark Arts to head off at the pass the feeling that a grammatical rule is upholding ‘proper, traditional’ English against ‘slipping standards’?
If that’s actually what’s being argued, no. And indeed prescriptivists often do argue this. But nobody seems to have actually been claiming that in this case.
If it had been explicitly claimed it wouldn’t be ‘heading it off at the pass’!
:-)
Is it Dark Arts to head off at the pass the feeling that a grammatical rule is upholding ‘proper, traditional’ English against ‘slipping standards’?
If that’s actually what’s being argued, no. And indeed prescriptivists often do argue this. But nobody seems to have actually been claiming that in this case.
If it had been explicitly claimed it wouldn’t be ‘heading it off at the pass’!
:-)