Academics generally believe that ‘science is about how things are, not how they ought to be’ but linguists go one better and claim that trying to interfere is utterly pointless. The community of speakers is autonomous, they argue, and will not follow. The Turkish experience seems to contradict the idea that linguistic resistance is futile. Today’s Turks may not speak exactly the way the TDK wanted them to, but there’s no gainsaying that this official busybody has had a huge impact. Especially in the field of vocabulary, the TDK’s effect on the language, whether one likes it or not, has been enormous and enduring.