Prescriptivist grammar

Just a couple things I wanted to share with you...
I found these in an old book, "Gram=E1tica Castellana",
in my workplace (a community centre's library). It's
so ridiculous I had to tell you, about the use of
the pronouns in Argentina, the informal _vos_ "you" vs.
_t=FA_ ("standard" Spanish). I translate roughly=20
(UPPERCASE emphasis mine):

  In the River Plate, and especially in Argentina,
  there exists a _vos_ that has nothing to do with
  that respectful _vos_ [...] It's the most
  remarkable vice, "the one TRUE STAIN in Argentine         !!!
  language" [...] Being singular, it agrees with
  CORRUPT plural forms. [...]

[Aside: Spanish is just corrupt Latin, you know...]

  And as if this weren't enough, this BASTARD _vos_
  is accompanied among us with a kind of vocative
  pronoun, _che_, ambiguous in person, number or
  gender. [...]

  Both the use of _vos_ instead of _t=FA_ and the use
  of _che_ must be fought against in the classroom
  and outside of it, UNTIL ITS FULL EXTIRPATION.


This was in the 1950s. I'm glad that such idiocy is
not being propagated in modern books any more, but
I have to note that the verb conjugations are still
given in Castilian Spanish, as if we still were talking
like that :-(

BTW does anybody know where _che_ comes from? I know
it means "people" (coll.) in Mapuche, a native language
from the South of Argentina and Chile, but I can't
believe it spread to the rest of the country from that
area.


--Pablo Flores