Abstract

Review article of
Davide Crystal, 'TXT'. OUP, 2010
&
Dennis Baron, 'A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers and the Digital Revolution', OUP, 2009

If the British ever became sophisticated enough to recognize proper public intellectuals, then
David Crystal would be a front-runner to be so considered. As a prolific, serious, and highly regarded
linguist, with an enviable ability to explicate lucidly the most complex concepts, he has long conducted a
war on behalf of the living tongue against the English style police — the sort of people who would welcome
an English Language Academy with powers to match the stifling authority of the Real Academia Española,
the Accademia della Crusca, or the Académie française.