Part 4: The Conditional Entente
"Who are these bozos?" Unworthy asked.
"Boys," I said, "take off your caps. You are honored by the presence of Bryan A. Garner, author of Garner's Modern American Usage, and Geoffrey Pullum, co-author of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language."
Huff & Puff Post said, "Doesn't the first one pal around with Justice Scalia and the other one despise Strunk and White?"
"Full marks," said Pullum.
"But wait," said Huff & Puff Post, "you guys hate each other. You know, prescriptvist vs. descriptivist. We get a ton of hits whenever we set that one up. You should see the comments. They're ready to take each other's heads off."
"Whatever our past differences," Garner said, "Professor Pullum and I are in agreement about baseless crotchets and superstitions, the sort of shibboleths that your sites are perpetuating."
"So we've come to an understanding," said Pullum. "We've established a Conditional Entente to combat nonsense. And since this fellow you've dragged here has managed to come to a dim understanding of genuine English despite working as a newspaper copy editor, we insist that you let him go."
"You insist?" Unworthy said. "We do the insisting here."
"Not any longer," Garner said. "Comply, or we will be forced to take you down."
"You will? How"
"We've engaged people, some of your former employees, who have produced a series of videos and gifs on sound English usage, which we'll put up against yours."
He pronounced it "jifs."
Unworthy sneered. "We don't have anything to fear from that."
"My good fellow," Pullum said, "they feature cats. They're all cats. It's cats all the way down."
The blood drained from every face around the table.
"Come along," Pullum said, taking my arm. "Our work here is done."
We left, the door closing behind us on the big room in complete silence.
The End