Dragaera

duh!

Tue Feb 1 17:20:15 PST 2005

On Tue, 2005-02-01 at 21:43, Jeff Gibbons wrote:
 
> 
> > I'd never in a million years have identified Mark as a prescriptivist.
> >
> I'll admit I had to look that term up. I was amused at the result, in my
> opinion it's a null term. Language is a living thing, how can one judge it?

Heretic!  ;-)

> What standard do you use? Just pick a date and call that particular style
> correct?

One judges the changes according to whether, in one's opinion, they make
the language more flexible, elegant, and capable of making fine
distinctions.  If there is a change that is coming into vogue that one
doesn't care for, one avoids that usage, and perhaps even argues against
it.  This is almost always a losing battle, but generally worth fighting
anyway.

In any case, the distinction between descriptivist and prescriptivist is
quite real: compare a Webster's dictionary to an American Heritage
dictionary.