descriptivists vs. prescriptivists

[merry3perish]

I saw this in class and literally laughed out loud at John Simon.

[p1ck3r1ng]

I think we have to be more descriptivists than ever before because of the rate of growth like everything nowadays. Media and internet have the most freedom they have ever had and are moving and developing quicker than ever before. Gone are the days when we could put 100 rules in a book and distrubute it into schools and thats that. Formal grammar should still be part of education, but the correct use is up to the indivudual nowadays because of our freedom and less obvious social class boudaries.

[theNianda]

Thanks for posting this video! My assignment is well on the way!!

[Cougar139tweak]

Screw John Simon , Language is a living thing and the "English" he speaks would be looked down upon or even mis understood 200+ years ago. Variety is the spice of life, how boring would language and life be, Lets all be the same and speak the same way, I think I saw a show on it was tried before only it was harder to understand as I think it was old film and it was IN GERMAN.

[ryan84160]

Isn't this how most languages are "created" ? I mean English is just a Germanic language that deviated from other Germanic languages like Frisian and Saxon and was bastardized Norman. The romance languages evolved in the dark ages from Latin after the fall of the roman empire. Throughout history there has never been anyone writing the rules of how a society can or can't create its own new languages, they just happen.

[karatekid1001]

Watchin this for Extra Credit

[firebreathone]

This ability to change, adapt and always remain mutually intelligible across seemingly diverse linguistic groups. Now, that is a STRENGTH, not a weakness!

[firebreathone]

the guy doesn't see that change is something that is inevitable. Moreover, he fails to appreciate the fact that part of what makes English so great is this ability to change.

[cockroach2]

Doesn't Simon realize he himself is speaking a language that is just a dumbed down, vulgar version of Proto Indo-European?

[firebreathone]

Isn't the last statement he made utterly stupid? :"Maybe change is inevitable, maybe dying from cancer is also inevitable but I don't think we should help it along".

[firebreathone]

Notice what the guy says at 4:01: "the descriptive linguists are a curse upon their race". It just goes to show how incredibly delicate this issue is.

[firebreathone]

Along with prescriptivism > this is how to do it, came proscriptivism > avoid doing it like this.

It is this approach that has shaped the linguistic faculty of mind of most people (since the early modern era) and today most linguists take a descriptive rather than a prescriptive approach.

They have arrived to the conclusion that one cannot fix the language: any attempt to do so is futile.

[firebreathone]

exactly right. That's the main distinction.

[firebreathone]

current ideas of "correctness" and "proper writing and speech" mostly date back to the 18th century where prescriptivists(predominantly Bishop Robert Lowth)had a major influence on the way people thought about their language. He was also the one who formulated the idea that one should not end a sentence with a preposition (preposition stranding). Whilst this is a stylistic issue, it is by no means syntactically incorrect to do so. prescriptivists often forget that language-change is inevitable

[firebreathone]

Lowth's method criticised false syntax his examples were from Shakespeare the King James Bible, John Milton and othr famous writers. His understanding of grammar was based on the study of Latin.Lowth condemns Addison's sentence Who should I meet the other night, but my old friend? on the grounds that the thing acted upon should be in the Objective Case (corresponding to an oblique case in Latin)

[firebreathone]

Prescriptivism is just not effective anymore. Not in our day, where the sociolinguistic "norm" is further disappearing and people are more willing to accept varities of the language.

[firebreathone]

It's extremely fascinating.

I don't for one minute presume that I am an expert in this field but in my humble opinion one cannot fix the language. Taking a wider sociolinguistic view of the English language (that is, actually studying Jewish/Jiddish-english, African-american English and all other variants) can teach us more about the language than we previously knew. Notice that these varieties also stretch the syntax of the language to unknown limits.

[NotthepinkcatAeris]

I saw this in class once, and as I recall, we actually nothing little of Mr. Simon ideas in a discrete way and only his short opinions. I also think 'prescriptivist' is much of myth, a windmill giant.