egregious prescriptivism

[Wilson Gray]

On Sep 10, 2004, at 9:35 AM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       RonButters at AOL.COM
> Subject:      egregious prescriptivism
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> 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.

Whoa! That's harsh!

-Wilson Gray

>
>
> 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
>>
>