Also Webster & then Merriam Webster is by design prescriptive, like The French Institute. The Oxford English Dictionary aim was to document and reflect usage.
Ernest Gowers "The Complete Plain Words" is prescriptive but was aimed at Civil servants and Journalists and Lawyers, not novelists. It and Strunk & White (I have both on paper (CPW 1964 print, S&W 2000, but dates from 1930s) & electronic) were never really right for Novelists and are now hopelessly outdated.
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