There's a measure of prescriptivism and descriptivism in every dictionary. Prescriptivism believes that the language should mirror the best practices of English, and editors are prescriptivist in so far as they don't want to let things they consider to be… — Kory Stamper Copy Share Image
Back in the 19th century, our marketing folks decided to play up the refined usage angle because prescriptivism was very popular: our dictionary is where you go to learn anything about anything. That really set the tone in North America… — Kory Stamper Copy Share Image
