Considering the fact that Croatian grammar and orthography often encounter linguistic doubts, it is not surprising that linguists form different opinions towards language norms, which leads to frequent linguistic polemics. This paper presents two different approaches of contemporary linguists to the grammatical and orthographic norms of the Croatian language - prescriptivist and descriptivist. The first approach is advocated by Marko Alerić and Nives Opačić, who stand for the language prescribed by law and, through their activities in various spheres of social life, strive to bring the Croatian people as close as possible to the linguistic norm, in order to reduce their linguistic doubts and enable them to use the language as correctly as possible. On the other hand, linguists Mate Kapović, Anđel Starčeivć and Daliborka Sarić think that linguistic phenomena should not be prescribed, but only described, which points to a much more liberal view of the language, in which the standard is seen only as one of many different varieties of the language. Linguists, using argued criticisms, point out their disagreement with the conflicting position of their colleagues and show that different approaches to the language norm are mainly the result of different social circumstances, as well as political commitments. Although the prescriptivists point out the constant interest of the wider community in the correct use of language norms, the results of the research indicate extremely uneven opinions of students of Croatian language and literature in relation to the analyzed issue, which confirms the reasons for the constant polemics presented in the paper.