Ubiquitous prescriptivism

[Wilson Gray]

On Sep 10, 2004, at 1:42 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Ubiquitous prescriptivism
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>
> Of course prescriptivism is hilariously neofascistic - unless the
> prescription is that "he" must not be used to refer to persons in
> general.  Et cetera.
>
> JL
>

At last! Someone with the cents that God gave a goose!;-)

-Wilson Gray

> "Gordon, Matthew J." <GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU> wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Gordon, Matthew J."
> Subject: Re: Ubiquitous prescriptivism
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>
> I very much agree with Ed Finegan's observations on the hypocricy in
> the prescription vs. description mantra that is (or has been) so often
> repeated in introductory textbooks and courses. He makes his case
> strongly in his contribution to the Cambridge History of the English
> Language, vol 6.
>
> Still, while the terms "prescriptive" and "descriptive" are
> misleading, let's not forget that there are profound differences
> between the linguistic worldviews at play. Consider for example this
> excerpt from The Vocabula Review's "Ask Fiske" section about the usage
> "a whole nother":
>
> "Among educated speakers, a whole nother thing is sometimes used
> jocularly — though the humor of this phrase and others like it escapes
> me entirely. Perhaps a clever person thought of this arrangement as an
> example of tmesis, a rhetorical figure in which one word is made into
> two (another > a nother) or a word or phrase is added between parts of
> a compound word or between syllables of a word (a whole
> nother)...Among uneducated speakers, a whole nother thing, however, is
> just another example of dull-witted, ungrammatical English. Stupidity
> and mimicry explain its use. "
>
> This comment, which I think is fairly typical of "prescriptivist"
> approaches to language, can be distinguished from how a linguist might
> respond in at least two major ways: 1. an ignorance about how language
> works, specifically about linguistic change - a linguist would
> probably not suggest that a usage such as this could result from the
> conscious effort of "a clever person", and 2. a real lack of curiosity
> about how language works or why speakers do what they do - a linguist
> (or anyone really interested in understanding language) would not
> dismiss a linguistic phenomenon as a product of "stupidity and
> mimicry". Thus, while the claims that linguists are driven purely by
> scientific objectivity are often overblown, it is important to
> remember that we still are a long way from the kind of
> anti-intellectualism displayed by commentators like Fiske.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Ed Finegan
> Sent: Fri 9/10/2004 10:14 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Ubiquitous prescriptivism
>
> Don't know who among participants in the 'egregious' discussion were
> kidding, who were serious.
>
> It strikes me, though, that we display an 'unevenhandedness' wrt
> description and prescription. Dialectology and linguistics more
> generally claim a vigorous descriptivism, but when it comes to people's
> linguistic judgments we proscribe only some kinds and historically have
> been condemnatory. Our textbooks and popular treatments poke fun at
> folks who prescribe, in large part, I think, because we see THEIR
> prescriptive views as linguistically arbitrary and frequently
> disdainful
> and discriminatory. But here, too, we're inconsistent because when WE
> deem particular usages discriminatory, we vigorously prescribe some
> usages and proscribe others. I say that's good, but let's put our
> politics on the table and not misleadingly invoke science, when
> religion
> might be closer to the truth.
>
> I'm reminded of current war talk with god invoked on both sides.
>
> Ed Finegan
>
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