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Prescriptivists Proscribed

Via Language Log and also Universal Hub: a grammar vigilante from Somerville and his accomplice were fined and banned from the national park system after editing a historic sign. The Arizona Republic reported last week that

Jeff Michael Deck, 28, of Somerville, Mass., and Benjamin Douglas Herson, 28, of Virginia Beach, Va., pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Flagstaff after damaging a rare, hand-painted sign in Grand Canyon National Park. They were sentenced to a year’s probation, during which they cannot enter any national park, and were ordered to pay restitution.