Language bullies have a bloody-minded and literal understanding of how speech works.
Not really. Just put the first 'R' back in February and get I/me-us/we straight and there won't be any scenes from me.
Language bullying -- or prescriptivism, as it's more politely called -- is conservative in the worst sense. It advances a stuffy and old-fashioned view of language, the rules of which it considers set by supposed experts, such as the authors of grammar books, rather than common usage. It is deeply anti-populist and snobby, not to mention just plain wrong and cranky....

But worst of all is the constant abuse that is hurled at the non-standard English of blacks and other groups, as when an old Mississippi Delta blues singer howls, "I can't get no lovin'." That's a double negative, bullies say, so it's wrong.I've been in a fair number of blues bars and have never seen abuse hurled at the musicians. I've never walked out in a snit when someone sings about gettin' no lovin'. But when one of my children says something along the lines of, "He came to visit Fran and I," I do get cranky. Just plain right and cranky.