# Does descriptive linguistics mean "anything goes"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 5, 2022, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005 "2022-09-05T17:29:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/241 "2022-09-18T23:21:08Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > This is quite different than a prescriptive view - even though it’s written by the person creating a prescription for all future English (by his choice of what dialect to print). I find it quite comforting that at least one other person in this thread actually understands the definition of words they are debating. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/242 "2022-09-18T23:22:24Z")
Purely by accident, I’m sure (P.S. Thanks 😊). ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2022, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/243 "2022-09-19T00:55:43Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I find it quite comforting that at least one other person in this thread actually understands the definition of words they are debating. A very prescriptivist thing to say! 😄 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2022, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/244 "2022-09-19T01:54:52Z")
A personal insult! I’m telling! ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2022, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/245 "2022-09-19T02:12:34Z")
How do you soothe a prescriptivist whose feelings have been hurt? “Their, their.” ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2022, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/246 "2022-09-19T04:37:07Z")
The answer I’d seen before was: _they’re, their, there_. Oddly enough, those were also the “capcha” answer choices for “Fill in the blank with the correct word”. The caption of that cartoon was \*Why nobody got on the Internet yesterday" (or some such line). ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2022, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/247 "2022-09-19T14:35:31Z")
I’m wanting to make sure my understanding is on point. Prescriptivism is a special case of in group out group language use. Its big advantage is its tendency to support a societal wide standard within all educated venues, and to facilitate to expansion of those with access to those venues, and facility within them. It however also supports classism, both structurally and by supporting implicit and explicit classist beliefs. There _are_ also “corrections” made _changing_ what had been “proper” to something else, as old words’ are realized to be inappropriate and new ones better, including in ways that diminish exclusion. These seem to _not_ fall under a prescriptivist umbrella in general. Is that a reasonable understanding? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2022, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/248 "2022-09-19T16:24:23Z")
I’m by no means an expert but I would say that prescriptivism looks at the variation in language as deviation from an ideal form and thus as an indication of intellectual and/or moral failure. Descriptivists find this annoying because they wish to study the variations and learn about them, independent of any judgment (thus, prescriptivists make the lives of linguists more difficult by making people self-conscious about the variations that they wish to study). Everyone appreciates the practical benefits of standardization - but for descriptivists the standard is a variation that’s useful because wide-spread (at one point the standard language for science was Latin, in the early 20th century a chemist would find German a useful language to know), not an ideal to measure everything else against. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2022, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/249 "2022-09-19T16:53:59Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Descriptivists find this annoying because they wish to study the variations and learn about them I think calling it just “annoying” is a bit misleading. I’m quite capable of ignoring prescriptivists when looking at variation, and as you say there is obviously good reason to teach kids to code switch to common standards to complement their native dialects. But that needs to be framed appropriately - AAVE speakers are not learning “correct” English at school, and it is not an intellectual deficiency to speak a non-standard dialect. I push back against prescriptivism in its common manifestation as supremacism that sneers dismissively at anything other than the standard dialect as inferior or plain “wrong” - and, of course, even misrepresents personal stylistic preferences about variation that _falls within_ widespread common usage in the standard dialect as an absolute of “right” and “wrong”. It is far worse than just annoying - it is utterly ignorant, and it harms people. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2022, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/250 "2022-09-19T22:24:27Z")
Sorry. I didn’t mean to minimize the human cost of prescriptivism. I was thinking of the problems that prescriptivism causes during research - because people who use socially-disparaged dialects that linguists would like to study, alter their way of speaking when the researchers come around. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2022, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/251 "2022-09-19T22:30:07Z")
P.S. This article [Language Log » Compound agent nouns in English](https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=56192) is the kind of stuff that I find fascinating - a brief discussion of a mode of word-creation that apparently existed in English for only a few hundred years - and which, judging from the kinds of words that this mode introduced to English, was probably a mode used by a socially-disadvantaged subgroup, but which has enriched current standard English with words like “pickpocket,” “turncoat,” and “spendthift.” Who knows what unique processes are going on in today’s English that will be equally valuable in creating a vibrant future English - descriptivists can find out, by meeting people and listening to them, while prescriptivists will try to stop these developments, but at best will just make it hard to understand the processes behind these developments, by preventing the recording of what’s actually happening in the language ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2022, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/252 "2022-09-19T23:43:51Z")
I remember Language Log from the early days, but it lost me with specialization when every post seemed to be like this recent one, [Disappearing readings of Sinoglyphs: focus on Bo (–\> Bai) Juyi / Haku Rakuten](https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=56201). I should take another look to see if changed again. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2022, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/253 "2022-09-19T23:49:48Z")
Yeah a lot if them are too technical for me but the one I linked to is from last week and is at my speed. ---
**Author:** ![Paxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/50afbb/32.png) [@Paxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paxx)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/254 "2022-09-22T22:32:58Z")
Back to the OP. It’s fine to say that there are universal rules (like word order) that apply to all dialects of English. But, you’re on shaky ground when comparing linguistics with physics. > [@Riemann](#): > > > Medieval Prescriptivist: Planets orbit the Sun in circles. That’s what I was always taught, that’s God’s law. Any planet that does not orbit in a circle is doing it wrong. > > > > Descriptivist Astronomer: In fact, the data show that a planetary orbit may be any type of ellipse. Here are the equations of motion. > > Obviously the difference here is not rules vs “anything goes”. It is incorrect rules vs _objectively correct_ rules. > > You might think that this is a poor analogy. But it’s not, because there are a whole lot of rules of language that are just as strict as the orbits of planets. Actually, it is a poor analogy. You’re confusing the arguments against heliocentrism with those against elliptical orbits. The example of a medieval prescriptivist is a contrived hypothetical: - “Planets orbit the Sun in circles.” Heliocentrism became common during the Renaissance, not during the medieval period. - “That’s what I was always taught.” Circular orbits around the Earth, yes; circular orbits around the Sun, no. - “that’s God’s law.” The idea of circular orbits was Platonic/Aristotelian, not biblical. The idea was adhered to, even when it appeared to be contradicted, so the basic notion of authority does apply. - “Any planet that does not orbit in a circle is doing it wrong.” Nobody said that planets do things in the "right” or “wrong” way. You are forcing a comparison with linguistics. In any case, circular epicycles were introduced to explain whatever couldn’t be explained by simple circular motion, and later abandoned when elliptical orbits were introduced. Given that your medieval prescriptivist didn’t exist, then, by analogy, linguistic prescriptivists don’t exist. 😮 As for the descriptivist astronomer’s comments: - In 1609, Kepler formulated the idea of elliptical orbits. All of the ellipses are the same “type”. They vary by size, eccentricity, inclination and other parameters but those are quantitative differences not qualitative. It seems that you use “type” to draw a comparison with linguistic typology. - It wasn’t until 1687 that Newton published his laws of motion and gravity and derived the equations that correspond with Kepler’s laws of planetary motion. So, we’re left with this: “There are a whole lot of rules of language that are just as strict as the orbits of planets.” Please provide the equivalent of “equations of motion” in linguistics — examples of rules that are just as strict as the orbits of planets. Your example of word order hardly qualifies. All the planets obey the same laws of motion but word order varies by language. Even in English there are exceptions. It seems, though, from the rest of your post, that you’re not talking about [linguistic universals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_universal) but, rather, about the descriptive rules of English. You raise a number of good points and you’ve changed my mind about prescriptivism. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2022, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/255 "2022-09-23T03:03:52Z")
Since the thread is bumped I’ll raise a related question: what do posters here think is appropriate role for the pedant? Is there any appropriate role for pointing out, in venues like this one perhaps, that the phrase is “a lot” not “alot”, so on? Or is that too prescriptivist? ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2022, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/256 "2022-09-23T11:01:01Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Is there any appropriate role for pointing out, in venues like this one perhaps, that the phrase is “a lot” not “alot”, so on? If that’s what the thread is about, sure. If it’s about cheese, probably not. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2022, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/257 "2022-09-23T11:06:59Z")
How silly! Everyone knows it’s gratitude and belongitude! ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2022, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/258 "2022-09-23T11:16:09Z")
You seem very knowledgeable and well versed on the subject, so I’ll ask your opinion. A few years back, there was a thread on what is known in Black communities as “Ebonics”, which was being pushed by some people to be accepted as a language in its own right or, at the very least, descriptive linguistics. My comment was that it was simply poor English with proper schooling being the cure. I faced some animosity for that but, based on most of the comments from various prominent members of the Black community, many in the Black community itself seemed to agree with me. So would you consider Ebonics to fall within, “the persistent fallacy that descriptivism means anything goes”? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2022, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/259 "2022-09-23T12:47:17Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Is there any appropriate role for pointing out, in venues like this one perhaps, that the phrase is “a lot” not “alot”, so on? Or is that too prescriptivist? It’s why I like “bourgeonics,” as it makes it clear that: 1. It’s just another dialect of English, analogous to “ebonics” and not intrinsically better or worse than any other dialect; and 2. Nevertheless, if you want to get in good with the bourgeoisie, it’s a good dialect to be proficient in. If I’m teaching someone, you bet I’ll explain that “a lot” is the standard spelling, and in contexts where standard spelling matters, they should pay attention to that. But if I’m not their teacher, then no, it’s not appropriate for me to point that out. And even as their teacher, if I have time, I’ll explain the context, rather than just telling them that the phrase “is” _a lot_ and not _alot_. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2022, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005/260 "2022-09-23T13:10:43Z")
> [@Paxx](#): > > Actually, it is a poor analogy. You’re confusing the arguments against heliocentrism with those against elliptical orbits. > > The example of a medieval prescriptivist is a contrived hypothetical: > > - “Planets orbit the Sun in circles.” > Heliocentrism became common during the Renaissance, not during the medieval period. > - “That’s what I was always taught.” > Circular orbits around the Earth, yes; circular orbits around the Sun, no. > - “that’s God’s law.” > The idea of circular orbits was Platonic/Aristotelian, not biblical. The idea was adhered to, even when it appeared to be contradicted, so the basic notion of authority does apply. > - “Any planet that does not orbit in a circle is doing it wrong.” > Nobody said that planets do things in the "right” or “wrong” way. You are forcing a comparison with linguistics. In any case, circular epicycles were introduced to explain whatever couldn’t be explained by simple circular motion, and later abandoned when elliptical orbits were introduced. > > Given that your medieval prescriptivist didn’t exist, then, by analogy, linguistic prescriptivists don’t exist. 😮 > > As for the descriptivist astronomer’s comments: > > - In 1609, Kepler formulated the idea of elliptical orbits. All of the ellipses are the same “type”. They vary by size, eccentricity, inclination and other parameters but those are quantitative differences not qualitative. It seems that you use “type” to draw a comparison with linguistic typology. > - It wasn’t until 1687 that Newton published his laws of motion and gravity and derived the equations that correspond with Kepler’s laws of planetary motion. I mean, thanks for the history lesson - but what do you think if the probability is that someone who chose to be named after Riemann on here with an avatar of gravitational lensing doesn’t know this? The prescriptivist / descriptivist astronomers in the OP were _hypothetical_. In the first draft I had geocentrism / heliocentrism in there, but it didn’t seem to work so well, so I made it solely about the shape of orbits. I do appreciate that it may be confusing and distracting that this does not correspond to historical reality, and I’ll work on a better analogy. I’m concerned that the “special case” nature of a circular orbit might also be a distracting defect in the analogy. The intended features of the analogy were that the prescriptivist “rules” were not based on observation, and that in fact the prescriptivist could not really identify _any_ source for the claimed rules (“God”). Whereas the descriptivist astronomer was certainly not coming in and suggesting that planets can move in any and all directions at whim, in fact they were observing how planets actually move and deriving precise equations of motion. > [@Paxx](#): > > Please provide the equivalent of “equations of motion” in linguistics — examples of rules that are just as strict as the orbits of planets. Your example of word order hardly qualifies. All the planets obey the same laws of motion but word order varies by language. If you read the thread, or even just the OP, I’m obviously not claiming that all languages/dialects have the _same_ rules. If you click through the link on the example I gave, it categorizes languages based on S-V-O, S-O-V etc. And none of this has anything to do with the question of whether Chomsky’s Universal Grammar is correct, or what its constraints are. The point is that the vast majority of combinations of words in any language are not grammatically valid in that language, and that all native speakers (unconsciously and with complete consensus in a given language) follow strict rules in constructing speech. And since everyone follows the _actual_ rules with complete consistency, these rules are never discussed by peeving prescriptivists. Emily Post did not issue instructions to people to remember to keep breathing. If a prescriptivist claims something is a rule, that will obviously only ever be because some people are _not_ following it. A descriptivist will often find themselves in the position of looking at who is not following the alleged rule and why and when, and disputing whether it is in fact in any objective sense a rule. But this position is not because descriptivists think there are no rules (or don’t _like_ rules or something) - that fallacy arises from descriptivists disputing the claims of prescriptivists who only pay attention to things that _aren’t_ rules in the way that they imagine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-descriptive-linguistics-mean-anything-goes/971005.md?page=14)