My point was that it is hard to say when something is 'simply bad' in the sprawling and multifarious carnival that is the English language.
I vaguely recollect from reading the blog Language Hat that modern linguists sometimes decide which variant of a class (for instance, 'software' vs 'a software' vs 'softwares') is more correct by counting how many Google search results each variant returns. No doubt they need to filter this data in many ways, but it would seem that it is no longer possible to say 'X is correct, all else is not.'
I vaguely recollect from reading the blog Language Hat that modern linguists sometimes decide which variant of a class (for instance, 'software' vs 'a software' vs 'softwares') is more correct by counting how many Google search results each variant returns. No doubt they need to filter this data in many ways, but it would seem that it is no longer possible to say 'X is correct, all else is not.'