Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
PURISTS
insist on sticking to the rules, even if sometimes the rules do not actually describe Standard practice. Their lexicons and grammars are full of absolutes that they insist are not subject to change; to purists, to permit deviation from the language norms they admire and wish to preserve is to be unacceptably permissive (it is not surprising that the most outspoken and unyielding of purists are sometimes called absolutists). The term purists is frequently pejorative, but at its least combative it can also identify linguistic conservatives (not necessarily reactionaries) who reject the fads and swift changes of vocabulary and grammar in favor of as rigorous an adherence to traditional and conventional standards as they can enforce. When they err, it is usually because they cling too long to the old, but sometimes they preserve the good middle way from the depredations of the new and modish. Compare PERMISSIVENESS.
