Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
LIBERAL USAGE
prefers and defends the new, the different. It frequently quarrels with the standards of Edited English, seeking to advance the causes of the Conversational locution and the Informal word and to win them places in untrammeled Standard English. Its speech and writing are full of the new and the daring in vocabulary, meanings, forms, and syntax. At its worst, liberal usage is slangy and unstable; at its best, it is bright, breezy, and full of the conversational sounds of lively American discourse. It is often quick to throw away tradition, and therefore it can date rapidly and can sometimes be less than fully comprehensible to users from older, less liberal generations. The liberal usage of the young is frequently what makes their conservative elders despair of the future of the language. But it often provides vigor and liveliness for that future as well. Compare CONSERVATIVE USAGE.
