Peeververein

The Independent reports that at the society's annual meeting, with an attendance of twenty-two, its chairman, Rhea Williams, announced, "Despite the sending out of a request for nominations for chairman, vice-chairman, administrator, web master, and membership secretary no one came forward to fill any role." […] This does not, of course, mean that the Peeververein will also melt away or lack outlets.

Unfortunately, these self-styled grammar lovers form no phalanx of gladiators defending our language from modern barbarians. They're simply simple linguitard peeververein - to build upon the delightful word coined by The Baltimore Sun's John E McIntyre meaning, in bastard German, "band of peevers" - roaming the Twittersphere in vast, dull cud-munching herds.

But write and the peeververein will descend to bewail your use of the singular "they," though it's not exactly transparently singular here.

[Benjamin] Dreyer is not entirely consistent: He simultaneously cautions the reader to avoid too many parenthetical asides (to avoid "seem[ing] like a dandy in a Restoration comedy stepping down to the footlights . . . to confidentially address the audience") while thoroughly peppering his work with whiplash-inducing discursive footnotes. He simultaneously dismisses appeals to historical practice used in defense of the singular "they" yet wields historical use against uptight peeververein, as with the verb "enthuse". But neither is English consistent.

The word-peevers of the era — the peeververein, to borrow a splendid coinage from John E. McIntyre, retired head of the copy desk at the Baltimore Sun — descended on Harding's usage like that ton of bricks you've been warned about.