People feel that there is a certain kind of language that’s appropriate and a certain type that isn’t appropriate. And these judgments are based on many things—some may make sense, some might not. People take these things very seriously. People are told things about the language in school that are demonstrably untrue, and they think anyone who doesn’t follow along with those beliefs is stupid or wrong.
Jesse Sheidlower, Editor at Large of the Oxford English Dictionary,
in conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates
Notes