egregious prescriptivism

[Jonathan Lighter]

I'm not Wilson Gray, but if I were that note I posted would have been signifyin' on the principle that some people need to lighten up.

JL

"Gordon, Matthew J." <GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Gordon, Matthew J."
Subject: Re: egregious prescriptivism
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I didn't read Wilson Gray's comment as prescriptive. I thought he was =
reminding us of an earlier thread in which it was suggested that "be =
done" vs. "be through" might be indexical of some variety or other. =
Obviously, I forget the details.

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society on behalf of RonButters at AOL.COM
Sent: Fri 9/10/2004 8:35 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: egregious prescriptivism
=20
I haven't been following this thread, but if Mr. Gray's egregious =
comment is
typical of the level of discussion, then it is time to stop it =
completely. The
comment represents exactly the sort of arrogant prescriptivist ideology =
that
has no place in serious linguistic discussion. Worse, it completely =
deflects
attention from the substance of what the writer was saying to the FORM =
in which
it was presented--an ad hominem attack that does no credit to an =
attacker,
much less the attacker's arguments.

Even worse, the comment is just plain wrong, whether viewed =
descriptively or
prescriptively. Obviously what the speaker meant WAS "done," which is =
the
past participle of "do"; past parts. routinely occur after the copula in
English, and it is no great stretch to use it in the way that the writer =
was so
dismissively criticized for doing. The first dictionary I pick up--AH4, =
college
edition--lists DONE as meaning 'carried out or accomplished', informally
'exhausted, worn out'. There is no usage note that tells one that =
THROUGH is somehow
to be preferred in this construction. Perhaps Mr. Gray can find some
prescriptivist rule book that tells him that DONE cannot "mean" =
'finished' and that only
THROUGH will do (would Mr. Gray's personal solecism detector allow =
FINISHED
in this environment, I wonder?), but surely the point is utterly =
trivial. Even
Garner's MODERN AMERICAN USAGE says that, although "when used as an =
adjective,
[DONE] is sometimes criticized, ... the word has been so used since the =
15th
century." Obviously, what the writer "means" is the same thing that =
writers
and speakers have been meaning for the past 600 years or so.


In a message dated 9/9/04 7:00:13 PM, wilson.gray at RCN.COM writes:


> >>If you don't believe us, I'm done
>
> Don't you mean, "I'm through ..."?
>
> -Wilson Gray
>

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