I
like to debate until I’m blue in the face because I like to see how high I can
get my blood pressure to spike in a ten minute time span. However, I also like
to learn things.
I
would not be writing this if I had not learned something new debating today.
The
debate started because I’m a pain in the ass about utilizing “formal” writing.
Good v. well, contractions v. spelled out, etc. You get the picture.
Likely,
this is because language is one of the things I’m good at. I’m a Francophile, a
lit nerd, and I’ve had syntactical and grammatical jargon crammed into my head
since I was able to form simple sentences.
Consequently,
I pride myself on my mad skillz. And I tend to vehemently defend the things I’m
good at.
The
debate I had today was about whether or not there should be rules for grammar
and syntax that must be followed by all writers in order to structure and
create uniformity within the English language.
I
was arguing that there should be one structure and set of rules everyone
follows. Fellow blogger T.X. Watson was arguing the contrary. (http://www.txwatson.com/)
A
term was introduced to me early on in the debate: prescriptivism.
Prescriptivism is the sect, if you will, of linguists and linguistics lovers
who believe English has to be a
certain way and that everyone should use it in that way, otherwise they are not
speaking proper English.
The
counterpart to prescriptivism is descriptivism.
Descriptivism
believes that there is no one proper set of rules to dictate how English should
be used (dictate, get it, haha).
The
way my brain processed this is: if the style in which a person is speaking or
writing makes sense and is comprehendible, why would you be a jerk and restrict
it to your own expectations?
I
do that all the time. I mean, I don’t correct strangers or anything; that would
be mean. But I do get into it with all of my friends. We make a conscious
effort to correct our texts and conversations with one another. It’s playful
teasing. And I will continue to do this until the end of time.
However,
in a larger cultural context, I can now understand why descriptivism would be
better than prescriptivism. The truth is in the root.
Descript:
meant to describe.
Prescript:
Given from one person (presumably and expert) to another person, to make
something that was wrong, “better”.
Summarily,
why would we work to create one system that everyone had to learn and conform
to despite cultural and geographical differences that should and do influence
language to be diverse instead of just working to accept and cherish the
differences and understand one another?
Yes,
yes, I got a little bit mushy at the end there, but it’s a very good point. To
be honest, I’d never thought about the ethical considerations regarding
language conformity. I always found it silly when others criticized non-English
speakers in America (considering the one criticizer obviously does not know the
native tongue of the criticizee [not a word] either). However, I never thought
that “proper” English had the potential to be repressive either, until today.
I
don’t think I’ve ever put quotation marks around the word proper in regards to
English either.
I
should go way more in depth, but I’m sick and just took NyQuil So here’s a
link:
I'll post more on this later.
Bean
out.
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