Wayne University's Professor (of English) Donald J. Lloyd has long believed that Americans are too busy thinking about their grammar to learn how to write. They are possessed of a demon, "a mania for correctness," writes Professor Lloyd in the current issue of the American Scholar. "Our spelling must be 'correct'even if the words are ill-chosen; our 'usage' must be 'correct'even though any possible substitute expression, however crude, would be perfectly clear; our punctuation must be 'correct'even though practices surge and change with the passing of years . . . The idea . . . rests like a soggy blanket on...
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