Rules of grammar are made to be broken by accomplished writers with the talent and boldness to transcend traditional limits, not so much by breaking the rules as by breaking new ground ... just as a figure skater breaks new ground landing the first "quadruple".
Well I agree with you, being a "descriptivist" rather than a "prescriptivist" when it comes to grammar in general.
Some will take it as instructive, myself included, that the editors of the American Heritage Dictionary cited as a leading example of this usage, a usage which precisely mirrors Lawrence Wright's usage, to wit: "West African diaspora" - "Morrocan diaspora".
I disagree. That example, "West African diaspora" uses an adjective (West African) to describe the noun (diaspora). In fact it would have been better if Wright had said "Morrocan dispora." What he wrote was "diaspora Moroccans." My gripe is due in part to the fact that Wright could have used a simpler and more direct term: immigrants.
