I have a BA in English (minor in AP-style journalism) from a 4-year state university, and only after the fact did I come to realize the error in the prescriptivist mindset when confronted with the clear evidence for a descriptivist English after attempting to reconcile the obvious differences in my English degree training and my AP Stylebook manual training. I generally write in loose AP Style (such as hyphenating compound adjectives).

It has been my (lay-)mission to nudge others into the topic of descriptivism and to discourage the concept of prescriptivism that appears to me quite a widely unchecked and unaddressed matter infiltrating teachers and students of English alike -- many teachers being entirely unaware there was even a distinction.

My other contributions to English (casting my vote, by using them) include:

[+] the double period to indicate a rise in tone as if the speaker has more to say but is opening the floor for comment, and

[+] describing the act of committing an error so as to reveal one's prescriptivist belief (such as advising someone to "look it up in a dictionary" to find how one is permitted to use a word) as to squiptipadoogleboinkaflop.