sticking to the facts

In “Tense Present” David Foster Wallace breaks down the various aspects of Bryan A. Garner’s “A Dictionary of Modern American Usage.” He explains how Garner has taken and inventive and ingenious approach to creating a dictionary. The uses this piece of work in order to accentuate the thesis of the entire paper: tradition vs. egalitarianism in the world of grammar. Though, Wallace does admit that it is, “easier to be dogmatic than Democratic, especially about issue that are both vexed and highly charged,” he does his best to look at all views of the issue(5). Being a self-proclaimed “snoot,” there are times when Wallace goes off on a tangent or two. One of his main stances is that dictionaries should not be regarded as the God of all that is right and true in the English language. He makes the point that, “certain conservative dictionaries were actually conceived and designed as corrective responses to the ‘corruption’ and ‘permissiveness’ of certain liberal dictionaries”(3). He touches on how dictionaries have become more descriptive rather than prescriptive over time. Garner does his best to battle this trend by supplying the reader with more of the history and reasoning behind terms and rules. Wallace also discusses the need to communicate in various dialects, but that there is only one dialect when it comes to the academic arena, SWE. Moreover, despite receiving scrutiny for voicing his opinions, that students must learn this dialect in order to be successful, he continues to stand by his guns.