The article “Tense Present: Democracy, English and the Wars over Usage” by David Foster Wallace published in the 2001 April Issue of Harper Magazine, which was written on account of the publication of a new dictionary, namely Brian A. Garner’s “A Dictionary of Modern American Usage”, appears more like a discussion on the extensive debate surrounding dictionaries and the study of language usage than a simple review.
Wallace comments on far more than Garner’s dictionary under the premise that to understand his assessment of the quality (“extremely good”) of Garner’s text the context surrounding it needs to be taken into account. This context of disputes and disagreements in U.S. lexicology includes a variety of topics, including but not limited to the issue of “correctness” in language, the question of Authority, Ethical Appeal, the opposing ideologies of Descriptiveness and Prescriptiveness, the problem of applying the Scientific Method to the study of language and a lengthier excurse on the advantages of non-standard dialects. In addition, in this journey through the “tense present” of U.S. lexicology Wallace deploys a series of digressions into his personal history, most prominently the introduction of the term SNOOT, and numerous examples of hypothetical situations to illustrate more theoretical arguments to great effect. Consequently, Wallace’s argument at times grows distant from Garner and his Dictionary of Modern American Usage as Wallace debates these topics in depth, only finding his way back to Garner in the last segment of the article, which forms the crux of the actual review, giving a structured and concise assessment of the qualities of Garner’s work.
