Peremptory and unreasoned pronouncements as to what is bad English are not the least of the minor pests which vex our enlightened age; and the bulk of them, as the better-informed are well aware, may be traced to persons who have given only very slight attention to verbal criticism ... those would-be philologists who collect waifs and strays of antipathies and prejudices, amplify the worthless hoard by their own whimseys, and, to the augmentation of vulgar error, digest the whole into essays and volumes.
—Fitzedward Hall, American philologist and essayist, The Nineteenth Century, 1880