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.