5 ms·

> any definition that say that a hot dog is a sandwich or that a sub/hero/hoagie is not a sandwich is a definition that I do not accept. Isn't that still presc

> any definition that say that a hot dog is a sandwich or that a sub/hero/hoagie is not a sandwich is a definition that I do not accept. Isn't that still prescriptivism? Descriptivism here would mean noting what people claim constitutes sandwichhood, and maybe noting what people's behavior reveals about what they actually do or don't treat as a sandwich. But it would be prescriptivist to assert a new definition of sandwichhood, even if you argue that it's somehow more motivated than others.

XaspR8d 8y ago
I am a scientist, and any experiment that demonstrates a hypothesis I do not like is an experiment I do not accept.
- gumby 8y ago
  I am a scientist and clearly am earning millions from Big Sandwich to define the applicability of sandwichness to hot dogs. Please do not subpoena my email.
repsilat 8y ago
I think they mean they side with Wittgenstein over Plato, but I don't know what to call the two stances.
dmreedy 8y ago
They're clearly a descriptivist only of their own behavior. It's a very Cartesian approach.
andrewla 8y ago
By descriptively I mean that I do not believe that we should model our usage after rules which were derived from usage, but instead should examine our usage and attempt to model it. A prescriptivist says that a pronoun should match the number, gender, and human-ness of its antecedent, and therefore “they” is not acceptable when referring to a single person. A casual descriptivist says that they understand what it means when other people use “they” in a singular fashion, and find that it is a useful construct. A formal descriptivist would try to describe how the usage and clarity is practically evolving over time. The terms “pronoun” and “antecedent” are terms themselves modeled from actual usage, rather than some organizing committee that decided how English should work. Similarly for sandwich definition. The descriptivist viewpoint says that no strict definition is necessary; that people have a casual understanding and should model their usage on that. A prescriptivist says “here is a definition of ‘sandwich’ that models a significant number of things that many people agree are sandwiches, so we expand that definition and use that to label things as sandwich or not sandwich, regardless of the common understanding”. The key point here is that I do not feel a strict definition is necessary in order to reasonably discuss sandwich labeling. Practically speaking, I have found that my heuristic above generally yields agreement from others (in particular, I have not yet found anyone who would be happy with a hot dog under those circumstances), with occasional differences of opinion that would be interesting for a professional sandwichologist to examine as a question of sandwichial drift over time.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
jcranmer 8y ago
Prescriptivism versus descriptivism is ultimately about what is more important: is the set of rules primal, or are the labeling of examples primal? Both people would agree that an utterance like "dragon they q" is not grammatical. But when faced with an utterance such as "me and John went to the park," the descriptivist would say that it occurs frequently enough that it ought to be considered grammatical, and that we should understand what the properties of "me" are to allow it to be grammatical, whereas the prescriptivist would object that "me" is an object pronoun and therefore cannot appear in a compound subject phrase so that people who utter such a sentence are not uttering grammatical sentences. Or put differently: if reality and models differ, a descriptivist says that the models are wrong, while a prescriptivist says that reality is wrong.

XaspR8d 8y ago

I am a scientist, and any experiment that demonstrates a hypothesis I do not like is an experiment I do not accept.

gumby 8y ago
I am a scientist and clearly am earning millions from Big Sandwich to define the applicability of sandwichness to hot dogs. Please do not subpoena my email.

repsilat 8y ago

I think they mean they side with Wittgenstein over Plato, but I don't know what to call the two stances.

dmreedy 8y ago

They're clearly a descriptivist only of their own behavior. It's a very Cartesian approach.

andrewla 8y ago

By descriptively I mean that I do not believe that we should model our usage after rules which were derived from usage, but instead should examine our usage and attempt to model it. A prescriptivist says that a pronoun should match the number, gender, and human-ness of its antecedent, and therefore “they” is not acceptable when referring to a single person. A casual descriptivist says that they understand what it means when other people use “they” in a singular fashion, and find that it is a useful construct. A formal descriptivist would try to describe how the usage and clarity is practically evolving over time. The terms “pronoun” and “antecedent” are terms themselves modeled from actual usage, rather than some organizing committee that decided how English should work. Similarly for sandwich definition. The descriptivist viewpoint says that no strict definition is necessary; that people have a casual understanding and should model their usage on that. A prescriptivist says “here is a definition of ‘sandwich’ that models a significant number of things that many people agree are sandwiches, so we expand that definition and use that to label things as sandwich or not sandwich, regardless of the common understanding”. The key point here is that I do not feel a strict definition is necessary in order to reasonably discuss sandwich labeling. Practically speaking, I have found that my heuristic above generally yields agreement from others (in particular, I have not yet found anyone who would be happy with a hot dog under those circumstances), with occasional differences of opinion that would be interesting for a professional sandwichologist to examine as a question of sandwichial drift over time.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

jcranmer 8y ago

Prescriptivism versus descriptivism is ultimately about what is more important: is the set of rules primal, or are the labeling of examples primal? Both people would agree that an utterance like "dragon they q" is not grammatical. But when faced with an utterance such as "me and John went to the park," the descriptivist would say that it occurs frequently enough that it ought to be considered grammatical, and that we should understand what the properties of "me" are to allow it to be grammatical, whereas the prescriptivist would object that "me" is an object pronoun and therefore cannot appear in a compound subject phrase so that people who utter such a sentence are not uttering grammatical sentences. Or put differently: if reality and models differ, a descriptivist says that the models are wrong, while a prescriptivist says that reality is wrong.