i need to find a way to inject this into conversation

[rone]

"... the scourge of descriptivism, or as i like to call it, the War on English."

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Hey, i will cheerfully admit that the way i do it is wrong. But i'm flexible when it comes to things where meanings aren't altered, like when qwrrty pointed out that while "irregardless" is ugly and dumb, it can't really be confused for something like the opposite of "regardless". I think this is an important point. Someone else pointed out that a hard-core prescriptivist wouldn't use a word like "cool", and perhaps i wouldn't have fifty years ago, although each generation seems to have its own word for "cool" (dandy, groovy, etc.).

Just like anything else in life, harmless changes shouldn't be disallowed. If a misused word's meaning can only be divined from context, that's not harmless.

[crankysysadmin.livejournal.com]

Aw, I didn't mean to be a jerk. I am a defender of good grammar, actually, but not because it is "correct"; I acknowledge the sociological effect that adhering to the rules of "Standard English" (a.k.a. "White English") has on hearers. In my opinion, it's important to be proficient at playing by The Man's rules so that in a pinch you can a) retain your social status and b) communicate precisely and unambiguously (because lots of people know The Man's rules). Slang definitions and informal usages vary too much by region to guarantee b), but I think informal rules and slang usage are the closest things we have to the core of language creation and development.