Wonderful to academics? Yes, academics study what is, but at any given moment there are prescriptive rules and norms for what should be, Elements of Style if you will:
Such take downs are often lamenting a lack of rule following in the style guides!
“What’s wrong is that the grammatical advice proffered in Elements is so misplaced and inaccurate that counterexamples often show up in the authors’ own prose on the very same page.”
> at any given moment there are prescriptive rules and norms for what should be
But according to who?
That's an entirely serious question. Because different "authorities" disagree about the rules and norms, and on top of that people disagree on who the "authorities" are or should be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription
Or even if you won’t:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/50-years-of-stupid-grammar...
Such take downs are often lamenting a lack of rule following in the style guides!
“What’s wrong is that the grammatical advice proffered in Elements is so misplaced and inaccurate that counterexamples often show up in the authors’ own prose on the very same page.”