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Some kinds of pedantry may be useful (probably not ever really 'essential' to be pedantic about that word), but linguistic prescriptivism is just tedious. The w

Some kinds of pedantry may be useful (probably not ever really 'essential' to be pedantic about that word), but linguistic prescriptivism is just tedious. The whole activity depends on a fundamental misunderstanding of language. The schoolmarmish desire to wag your finger at the way someone else speaks or writes is almost never successful and generally just a symptom cranky nostalgia and a false sense of superiority. There are perfectly good reasons to draw artificial lines around types of language use (formal critical or analytic writing, an email to a friend, a tweet, a code comment). And in such a context, we can make useful recommendations. Good writing teachers will qualify their advice exactly this way. That is, "In formal writing, don't use 'ain't'" rather than "There is no such word as 'ain't'." But blathering on about what is or is not good language without qualification is a colossal waste of time and energy. The funny thing to me is that most of the people who are really into this sort of thing are such mediocre writers. I suspect it's because they have very limited imaginations. (Final edit: the bit at the end about 'hopefully' is a complete myth, and it's very well known that it's a myth. People who complain about 'hopefully' or split infinitives in English pretty much prove that they are just cranks. A citation, pretty much picked at random: http://writingguide.geneseo.edu/?pg=topics/myths.html#hopefully http://writingguide.geneseo.edu/?pg=topics/myths.html#hopefu...)

elblanco 17y ago
> Some kinds of pedantry may be useful (probably not ever really 'essential' to be pedantic about that word), but linguistic prescriptivism is just tedious. The whole activity depends on a fundamental misunderstanding of language. The schoolmarmish desire to wag your finger at the way someone else speaks or writes is almost never successful and generally just a symptom cranky nostalgia and a false sense of superiority. The word I usually think of to characterize this is "pretentious".
xiaoma 17y ago
Tarring people who disagree with you as being mediocre writers or having limited imagination doesn't really encourage a very good discussion. Personally, I find poor grammar grating. Yes, I can understand what people mean when they make mistakes with its/it's, there/their/they're, there's/there are, your/you're, lesser/fewer, etc... It's not something I celebrate, though.
- telemachos 17y ago
  I admit that the crack about mediocre writing was unhelpful. Also, my whole post was too long. This topic gets under my skin. Beyond that, I would say that many of the things prescriptivists discuss are not grammatical mistakes. They are often disagreements about usage where reasonable people can disagree, but more importantly many of them are literally myths. That is, many of these so-called rules have never had good support in English usage or etymology or linguistics. In many cases, they are just usages that bothered someone in the 19th or 20th century who made a lot of noise. (For some discussion, browse through the hits to this search: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=5 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=5 or here: http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/national-grammar-day-2009-ten-common-grammar-myths-debunked/ http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/national-gr... ) For what it's worth, I find poor usage and poor grammar very grating as well. My point wasn't that we should celebrate it, but that cranky rants aren't good ways to deal with bad writing or speech. It helps to write well. It helps to recommend good writing. It helps to point out to people why one way of putting something might be more effective than another. But the Andy Rooney style of complaining (which, I'm sorry, I thought the article belonged to) isn't helpful.

elblanco 17y ago

> Some kinds of pedantry may be useful (probably not ever really 'essential' to be pedantic about that word), but linguistic prescriptivism is just tedious. The whole activity depends on a fundamental misunderstanding of language. The schoolmarmish desire to wag your finger at the way someone else speaks or writes is almost never successful and generally just a symptom cranky nostalgia and a false sense of superiority. The word I usually think of to characterize this is "pretentious".

xiaoma 17y ago

Tarring people who disagree with you as being mediocre writers or having limited imagination doesn't really encourage a very good discussion. Personally, I find poor grammar grating. Yes, I can understand what people mean when they make mistakes with its/it's, there/their/they're, there's/there are, your/you're, lesser/fewer, etc... It's not something I celebrate, though.

telemachos 17y ago
I admit that the crack about mediocre writing was unhelpful. Also, my whole post was too long. This topic gets under my skin. Beyond that, I would say that many of the things prescriptivists discuss are not grammatical mistakes. They are often disagreements about usage where reasonable people can disagree, but more importantly many of them are literally myths. That is, many of these so-called rules have never had good support in English usage or etymology or linguistics. In many cases, they are just usages that bothered someone in the 19th or 20th century who made a lot of noise. (For some discussion, browse through the hits to this search: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=5 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=5 or here: http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/national-grammar-day-2009-ten-common-grammar-myths-debunked/ http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/national-gr... ) For what it's worth, I find poor usage and poor grammar very grating as well. My point wasn't that we should celebrate it, but that cranky rants aren't good ways to deal with bad writing or speech. It helps to write well. It helps to recommend good writing. It helps to point out to people why one way of putting something might be more effective than another. But the Andy Rooney style of complaining (which, I'm sorry, I thought the article belonged to) isn't helpful.