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Obligatory xkcd: http://xkcd.com/1108/ http://xkcd.com/1108/ Age old argument of whether grammar is prescriptive or descriptive [1]. Anyone who has seen or rea

by cletus 12y ago

Obligatory xkcd: http://xkcd.com/1108/ http://xkcd.com/1108/ Age old argument of whether grammar is prescriptive or descriptive [1]. Anyone who has seen or read Shakespeare should be aware of how English has changed in the last few hundred years. Go back 1000 years and Old English would be utterly unintelligible to any modern English speaker. Often I encounter people who get a bee in their bonnet about using nouns as verbs or people who are too persnickety about "less" and "fewer". Or the New York Times getting a bug up its posterior about "tweet" [2]. I find the effort some people, including the "comprised of" guy here, spend on this kind of thing somewhat bizarre and a little sad. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription [2]: http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/the-tweet-debate/ http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/the-tweet-...

bweitzman 12y ago
I'm of the ilk that grammar should for the most part be prescriptive while dictionaries should be descriptive. And this is actually not a grammatical problem but a semantic one. "The book is composed of many pages" "The book is comprised of many pages" If one of these is incorrect, it can only be because of the meaning of the adjective phrase "comprised of". The actual structure of the sentence is fine. In my opinion, I think either one is totally acceptable, as long as the meaning is clear.
- spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
  Doesn't work in english which doesn't have a regular grammar in the same way latin does
TillE 12y ago
There's a difference between evolution and mistakes. Otherwise why aren't we validating hundreds of extremely common spelling and usage (eg, "equivocate" when they mean "equate") mistakes? That's how the language is being used by native speakers, after all. Then we really would be back in the 16th century.

by cletus 12y ago

bweitzman 12y ago

I'm of the ilk that grammar should for the most part be prescriptive while dictionaries should be descriptive. And this is actually not a grammatical problem but a semantic one. "The book is composed of many pages" "The book is comprised of many pages" If one of these is incorrect, it can only be because of the meaning of the adjective phrase "comprised of". The actual structure of the sentence is fine. In my opinion, I think either one is totally acceptable, as long as the meaning is clear.

spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
Doesn't work in english which doesn't have a regular grammar in the same way latin does

TillE 12y ago

There's a difference between evolution and mistakes. Otherwise why aren't we validating hundreds of extremely common spelling and usage (eg, "equivocate" when they mean "equate") mistakes? That's how the language is being used by native speakers, after all. Then we really would be back in the 16th century.