Every so often I think to myself, “I can live with the idea of linguistic descriptivism. It’s so democratic. The rules of language are so obviously fluid.” Then I read a random sampling of Facebook posts and the visceral reaction pretty much shoots that notion dead.
Prescriptivist 4 Life, yo!
Yes, that is the face of hypocrisy staring back at you.
hmmmmm….I must drive you totally crazy!
I have always held to the idea that, “words mean things.”
You drive me crazy, lady, but it’s a short trip; and you do it for reasons other than this, which makes it a good kind of driving me crazy.
[rant on]
And, yes, words mean things. This is what makes them useful. They also have an agreed upon spelling so that we can recognize the words being used. They should also be used in an agreed upon order to assist comprehension. Punctuation helps too.
It’s just common courtesy to one’s readers to follow the agreed upon rules of language on the whole. Novel uses serve to add a little spice here and there, but seriously, have a little pride in one’s output.
[rant off]
And then I start to feel guilty for being so inflexible. English grammar is internally contradictory anyway. It is vast. It contains multitudes. Not everyone had the same opportunities or the grew up in an environment that prioritized education. Everyone has ideas. Language reflects a community’s shared reality and so is always changing. Descriptivism reflects this. Generally I can still understand someone’s writing regardless of its construction.
…and then I read a random sampling of Facebook posts…
I’m right there with you, Nick. Drives me crazy. I was recently evaluating two online resources for potential use at our company – Corporate Executive Board (CEB) and Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4CP). i4CP? are you kidding me? “4” is a numeral, and even when expressed in word form represents a quantity, not a preposition (not to mention that it has a different spelling than “for”). This is the way a professional company chooses to represent itself? This is a company name, not a Prince song or text message …