snide English has always been with us,but clarity and style are far more important than observing dusty usage diktatsPeople often expect me why I followed my 2011 book on the history of violence, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and with a writing style manual. I like to say that after having written 800 pages on torture,rape, world war, or genocide,it was time to consume on some really controversial topics like fused participles, dangling modifiers, and the serial comma.
It’s not much of an exaggeration. After two decades of writing popular books and articles about language,I’ve learned that people possess strong opinions on the quality of writing today, with almost everyone finding it deplorable. I’ve also approach to realise that people are confused about what precisely they should deplore. Outrage at mispunctuation gets blended with complaints about bureaucratese and academese, and which are conflated with disgust at politicians’ evasions,which in turn are merged with umbrage (resentment, offense) at an endless list of solecisms, blunders, and peeves.
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Source: theguardian.com