I think he means to contrast English with, say, Spanish which has an actual governing, prescriptive body. I googled to find the name of it for you and Wikipedi

I think he means to contrast English with, say, Spanish which has an actual governing, prescriptive body. I googled to find the name of it for you and Wikipedia gave me a much better link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators As a primary English speaker, I find it both silly and abhorrent that they even bother but... eh. Whatever.