Usage absolutists are the Scalia-esque Originalists of the language-maven set. Their emphasis on “timeless” grammatical truths, in opposition to most linguists’ view of language as a living, changing thing, is at heart conservative; their fulminations about the grammatical violations perpetrated by the masses mask deeper anxieties about moral relativism and social turbulence.
Mark Dery in The Daily Beast. Strunk and White’s Macho Grammar Club (via protoslacker)