corpus fetishism

English Noun

Definition

An insistence that the only valid source of illustrative examples of words or language constructs is from the corpus (existing body of literature) of the language

Etymology

Probably coined by linguist Geoffrey Pullum. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000122.htmlhttp://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000058.html