> Some kinds of pedantry may be useful (probably not ever really 'essential' to be pedantic about that word), but linguistic prescriptivism is just tedious. The

> Some kinds of pedantry may be useful (probably not ever really 'essential' to be pedantic about that word), but linguistic prescriptivism is just tedious. The whole activity depends on a fundamental misunderstanding of language. The schoolmarmish desire to wag your finger at the way someone else speaks or writes is almost never successful and generally just a symptom cranky nostalgia and a false sense of superiority. The word I usually think of to characterize this is "pretentious".