Correct, but that’s not because of dictionaries and usage guides. Prescriptivists have cause and effect backwards.
Communities define their speech through speaking. Authorities determining what’s correct or not are completely unnecessary. If someone doesn’t follow the usage of a community, then they will not be understood by that community. And descriptivists record what the usage is for the community they’re studying.
Communities define their clothing through wearing clothes. Authorities determining what’s correct or not are completely unnecessary. If someone doesn’t follow the styles of a community, then they will not be dressed like someone of that community. And anthropologists record what clothing is worn by the community they’re studying.
Since you are so serious about this discussion, you’re keeping a large chunk of the board away by doing so in the Pit. You could always ask the mods to review to move it to it’s own thread, where people who mute the Pit on principle could participate.
Or, otherwise, you may need to Pit-it up a bit. Some jocular insults, a snide curse or three, otherwise this place will lose all respect!
Speak for yourself! Nothing endearing, this is boring as fuck! Wait, will the nitpickers come in and scold be for not wording it as boring AF? Probably. Pedants gonna pedant.
Pedantry is one of my pet peeves. It’s a miracle I don’t go insane 'round these parts, but then I don’t post a ton in Great Debates for this reason. It’s also one reason I eventually ditched philosophy as a college major, despite being genuinely interested in the material. I grow weary when people argue about things that aren’t important to the main discussion.
I think the variation in human language and how it changes over time is beautiful. I think code switching is fascinating. I code switch a lot, from my rural upbringing to academic and professional/technical speak. I remember my college roommate lecturing me for using “ain’t” - can’t remember the context - but it pissed me off. I was a top tier academic, if I wanted to use fucking “ain’t” on my own time that was my prerogative.
I had a linguistics class where I did a presentation on L33T speak. I dunno if they still call it that but basically gamer’s lingo and how that evolved from the necessity of rapid communication via keyboard. And it was in that class I decided that, despite my strong English and literature roots, I am a descriptivist.
