The twenty-first century has seen an increase in prescriptive attitudes towards language correctness, with usage guides, language blogs and even automated Twitter bots offering advice on what is or...Show moreThe twenty-first century has seen an increase in prescriptive attitudes towards language correctness, with usage guides, language blogs and even automated Twitter bots offering advice on what is or is not permissible within Standard English. Using comments posted below-the-line (BTL) by members of the public, in response to a regular column on language use in The Times titled “The Pedant”, written by Oliver Kamm, this thesis examines grassroots prescriptive attitudes – defined as attitudes held by non-linguists towards language correctness – towards prescriptive ideologies and a specific usage problem: less with countable nouns. This thesis concludes that a small majority of BTL posters hold well-documented grassroots prescriptive attitudes towards language correctness.Show less