From an article on bbc.com by James Harbeck titled “Why all English speakers worry about slipping up: The English language is confusing, inconsistent and easy to muddle. But some pour too much scorn on those who break the rules”:
Since Jonathan Swift’s 1712 Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue, two centuries of self-appointed correctors and improvers of English usage – such as Robert Lowth, HW Fowler, George Orwell, Kingsley Amis, Simon Heffer, Lynne Truss, and Neville Gwynne – have decried the decadent state of our language and instructed people on how to use it better….