(This is a translated version of my post ‘Les travers du candidat au prescriptivisme‘.)
Tuesday, March 29th 2016: I’m home from a day of teaching, during which I have endeavoured to initiate students of all levels to the intricacies and subtleties of language and linguistics. While I wait for the kettle to boil, I absentmindedly flip the pages of M, the magazine edition of Le Monde, which has been sitting on the kitchen table since Saturday, waiting for five minutes of quasi idleness. There, Lucien Jedwab’s column catches my eye; the former chief copyeditor of Le Monde has evidently taken over the position of defender of la bonne langue, previously held by journalist Dominique Pourquery. Continue reading