Another Thing to Pin on David Foster Wallace

Ten years ago, David Foster Wallace admitted in â??Tense Present,â? one of his best and most charming essays, to being a â??SNOOT,â? which he defined as a â??really extreme usage fanatic, the sort of person whose idea of Sunday fun is to look for mistakes in Safireâ??s columnâ??s prose itself.â? He outed himself while writing in Harperâ??s on Bryan A. Garnerâ??s Dictionary of Modern American Usage, a book, he says, that serves to confirm its authorâ??s â??SNOOTitude while undercutting it in tone.â?