Careful Writers

This expression grew current in the permissive years when nobody dared say in so many words that something was illiterate or wrong, but at the same time people went on feeling that some usages were better than others. Rank barbarisms could not, while that fashion lasted, be denounced as such, only mildly tut-tutted over as 'avoided by careful writers'.

That phrase and concept of course carry on into the present age of renascent prescriptivism, when a spade is coming to be called a spade once more if not yet a bloody shovel. But those careful writers continue as before to avoid the illiteracies and circumvent the dodginesses I have described here. If from time to time they seem to strike a sanctimonious note, to be unduly conscious of their singularity and dedication, this seems a payable price for having such people around. They will persist in fighting the good fight whatever anybody says and under any conditions because they have to, or so it seems to them. Cheered when the general outlook seems good, not unduly dismayed at adverse portents, they pursue good style for its own sake. They know that no linguistic change, large or small, comes about as a result of conscious effort. If Fowler could not discourage the improper usage of eke out or of like as a conjunction, who could?

We have never seen a time when it was fashionable to write well and unfashionable not to, nor are we likely to now that most of us can just about read and write. And even if one did arrive, it would fade away sooner or later, as fashions do. All that can be done is to encourage a few individuals to start thinking about how they express their thoughts. And take care oneself, naturally.

-Kingsley Amis, The King's English