With regard to the quote in the OP, I’ve decided to change my username to reflect my everlasting solidarity with the descriptivist movement.
So, since y’all is gonna be the ones to see it plastered all over the Boards, should I be Dialect Army or Dialect Soldier?
Grazi!
I’d go for Dialect Cannon Fodder, but that’s just the morbid side of me coming out. Seems more Warren Zevon-esque, if you ask me.
You could alway work in the marines somehow.
Dialect leatherneck though just doens’t meter well.
I’ll just play it straight and vote for Dialect Soldier. I like the rhythm.
You need an army and a navy – so Pretty soldier sailor dialect!
Color me Clueless.
What’s this a quote from? What the HELL does it mean? Should I just Google “descriptivist” and all will become clear?
I’d like to raise my hand here as well. What the heck does it mean?
One site attributes the quote to Yiddish speaker/scholar Max Weinreich, but still doesn’t explain it, and neither does his Wikipedia entry: Max Weinreich - Wikipedia
Another site asks (tongue in cheek, I hope) that Lily omlin came up with it:
http://volokh.com/posts/1185239379.shtml
Doesn’t explain it either.
The quote, “A language is a dialect with an army and a navy,” is about the problem distinguishing dialects from languages. It should be a simple matter, based on whether they are mutually intelligible. However, politics comes into it. For example, most linguists would say that Danish and Norwegian are the same language, and that Croatian and Serbian are the same language, but people from those countries want them to be separate. One the other hand, linguists would argue that Mandarin and Cantonese are different languages, but because they are spoken in the same country, non-linguists describe them as “Chinese dialects”.
The challenge is to phrase the user name in such a way that people connect it with the quote, which will be difficult. With Dialect Soldier, people are going to read dialect as an adjective and take it as a riff on Marxism–they’re going to think you meant “dialectical soldier” and got it wrong.
You could go with the more direct Dialect with an Army, but then you’re setting yourself up as the dialect rather than the soldier, which might be lame. And of course, you don’t have an army. Maybe Dialect without an Army would work better.
Or you could try Soldier for a Dialect or Army for a Dialect–both are a little wordy, but people will get the idea. I don’t know. Personally, I’d be happy to be recognized as a regional accent.
How about Militisto por Dialekto (Warrior for a Dialect)? It covers both army and navy, plus any other military services that may be required, plus, it’s in Esperanto! 
Never mind. Misread OP.
Nobody knows for sure; it’s a pretty pervasive meme in the world of linguistics, though.
This, this (descriptivism) and this (prescriptivism) may help.
Interesting input from the rest of you guys, thanks.
I remain stubbornly resistant to conlangs in all shapes and forms. I’ve resolved to save as much brain space as possible for real languages that people actually speak outside of academic departments.
Go for broke. Call yourself Dialect Assassin.
I’d be inclined to: Dialect with Army. But I think that **Dialect Army ** or Dialect Soldier work as usernames. **Dialect Warrior ** would work, too.
Or you could smush it to DialectArmy, as in - - what is the name of that cartoon/game where you look at a card with “He’s Himself” and guess that it means “He’s beside himself”? Because within that game’s rules DialectArmy could be interpreted as “a dialect with an army”.
DialeAcrtmy? Nah. Smushing them together further doesn’t work.
Yeah, I kind of like “Dialect with Army”.
I think fetus is such a cute username, so I would stick with i.t
If you have to be Dialect something, I’ll second Dialect Assassin. You’re taking more initiative that way.
Dialect Seaman.
I said seaman… heh-heh…
How about Language Without an Army?