# I swiftly herewith consign to the pit, the ignorant clowns who misconstrue "its" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 11, 2012, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871 "2012-07-11T05:44:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/121 "2012-07-12T19:03:35Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > Don’t worry, in a few years all the dictionaries will say “badly” is just another adjective. Common use after all. Where in common use do people say “Your argument is badly”? That having been said, OED has “badly” as adjective in an unbroken string of usage from 1654 through the present day, and “feel badly” in an unbroken string of usage since 1825. [QUOTE=OED: badly, adv. and adj.] **9.** orig. _U.S._ **to feel badly:** to feel guilty, regretful, or sorry. … **B.** _adj._ (chiefly _predicative_). Chiefly _Sc._ and _Eng. regional._ Unwell, in ill health; = POORLY _adj._ [/quote] ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/122 "2012-07-12T19:08:24Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > Don’t worry, in a few years all the dictionaries will say “badly” is just another adjective. Common use after all. I don’t understand this statement at all. Even from a prescriptivist standpoint, “Your argument is bad and you should feel bad,” is completely correct. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/123 "2012-07-12T19:11:18Z")
From most prescriptivist standpoints, anyway. But the problem with prescriptivist standpoints is that there isn’t a unified rulebook; if you let yourself be unconstrained by the realities of usage, you can make anything up and push it as a “rule”. Who knows what cockamamie idea **lance strongarm** ’s gotten ahold of? But I think it was mostly meant as just a random jab at those crazy descriptivists. It wasn’t meant to make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/124 "2012-07-12T19:19:24Z")
The weirdest thing about the view that dictionaries are the arbiters of correct usage, whose pronouncements are to flow down and be followed by the people in the same relationship as a legislator to their citizens, is that, by and large, most dictionary-makers don’t feel that way (particularly at the most well-known and prestigious ones; Merriam-Webster, the Oxford English Dictionary, etc.). There are prescriptive dictionaries, but by and large, lexicographers are a descriptivist lot and see themselves as carrying out a descriptive mission: recording rather than prescribing usage, just as physicists write textbooks about how the universe is observed to act and not how it ought to act. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/125 "2012-07-12T19:21:51Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > 40 buck’s? “Forty buck is?” What does’s that even mean? ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/126 "2012-07-12T19:43:11Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > No, you are being presumptuous. I do recognize correctness conditions: correctness as determined by patterns of usage. Because I recognize correctness conditions, I can imagine a teacher making an error in their grading of a grammar test, just as they might in their grading of a physics or chemistry or history test. Okay, then. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/127 "2012-07-12T19:44:13Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > “Forty buck is?” What does’s that even mean? It’s common use, so it means whatever people want it to mean, and if you want to know, you have to go look in a prescriptive dictionary. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/128 "2012-07-12T19:45:33Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > The weirdest thing about the view that dictionaries are the arbiters of correct usage, whose pronouncements are to flow down and be followed by the people in the same relationship as a legislator to their citizens, is that, by and large, most dictionary-makers don’t feel that way (particularly at the most well-known and prestigious ones; Merriam-Webster, the Oxford English Dictionary, etc.). There are prescriptive dictionaries, but by and large, lexicographers are a descriptivist lot and see themselves as carrying out a descriptive mission: recording rather than prescribing usage, just as physicists write textbooks about how the universe is observed to act and not how it ought to act. Sure, but if that’s all they are doing, nobody would have any reason to look up anything in any of those nice dictionaries. So why do people look up words in dictionaries? ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/129 "2012-07-12T19:46:51Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I don’t understand this statement at all. Even from a prescriptivist standpoint, “Your argument is bad and you should feel bad,” is completely correct. Yes, it’s correct. I thought you were riffing on the incorrect, yet frequent, use of “badly” for “bad.” I feel badly for confusing you. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/130 "2012-07-12T19:49:38Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > From most prescriptivist standpoints, anyway. But the problem with prescriptivist standpoints is that there isn’t a unified rulebook; if you let yourself be unconstrained by the realities of usage, you can make anything up and push it as a “rule” I acknowledged all this from the very beginning. On the other hand, you can do the same thing in the descriptive world. In fact, that’s exactly what you’re doing - making up any rule you want. So, as I said, there’s a balance. There are rules, but they are made by consensus, and can be changed by consensus, by breaking them over and over. It really doesn’t matter if you prescribe or describe the rules, they still exist. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/131 "2012-07-12T19:49:39Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > It’s common use, so it means whatever people want it to mean, and if you want to know, you have to go look in a prescriptive dictionary. Again, nonsensical random sniping at descriptivism. Descriptivists recognize rules and correctness criteria; they just recognize them as emergent from, and identified with, patterns of common usage rather than pronouncements from on high. Descriptivists understand that you can argue for the falsehood of a rule by showing that people do not actually typically follow it. (Descriptivists also understand that the vast majority of rules of English grammar are followed unconsciously, to the point where most speakers could not consciously articulate them; that’s why not everyone is a professional syntactician). I’ll link to a [post](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001843.html) by linguist Geoffrey Pullum which I’ve linked to before. Hopefully, it will put an end to this kind of completely misinformed parody of descriptivism. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/132 "2012-07-12T19:50:03Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > It’s common use, so it means whatever people want it to mean, Is you are being sures’? > [@](#): > > and if you want to know, you have to go look in a prescriptive dictionary. :smack: Oops. I looked in the other kind. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/133 "2012-07-12T19:50:36Z")
And literally a few posts after Indistinguishable kindly pointed out the use of badly as an adjective throughout the ages. What is it like in your world, I wonder. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/134 "2012-07-12T19:51:44Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Where in common use do people say “Your argument is badly”? > > That having been said, OED has “badly” as adjective in an unbroken string of usage from 1654 through the present day, and “feel badly” in an unbroken string of usage since 1825. Sigh. The suffix “ly” has a specific and consistent function in our language. All the OED is doing is describing how people misuse it generation after generation. Doesn’t mean we have to keep doing that. We can stake out rules and say they make sense based on rational thought instead of just use when we want to. We don’t have to just bow to the chaos in every case. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/135 "2012-07-12T19:52:12Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > Sure, but if that’s all they are doing, nobody would have any reason to look up anything in any of those nice dictionaries. So why do people look up words in dictionaries? To figure out what the common usage of other people is. People don’t read physics textbooks to figure out the rules they’re supposed to make an effort to follow (“Oh, I’m supposed to fall at 9.8 m/s^2? Shit, all this time I’ve been doing it wrong. Better get it together from here out…”). People read physics textbooks to get an idea how the world around them has been observed to behave of its own accord, and use that information as they see fit. Dictionaries serve the same purpose. The only real difference is that the patterns of behavior physicists study stay remarkably consistent, while the patterns of behavior lexicographers study shift all the time. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/136 "2012-07-12T19:54:50Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Again, nonsensical random sniping at descriptivism. > > Descriptivists recognize rules and correctness criteria; they just recognize them as emergent from, and identified with, patterns of common usage rather than pronouncements from on high. Descriptivists understand that you can argue for the falsehood of a rule by showing that people do not actually typically follow it. (Descriptivists also understand that the vast majority of rules of English grammar are followed unconsciously, to the point where most speakers could not consciously articulate them; that’s why not everyone is a professional syntactician). > > I’ll link to a [post](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001843.html) by linguist Geoffrey Pullum which I’ve linked to before. Hopefully, it will put an end to this kind of completely misinformed parody of descriptivism. By your definition, I’m perfectly happy being classed with descriptivists. My parody was more of \*you \*than descripitivists. Now you need to stop your silly parodies of me, because you’ve got me wrong. I tried to explain that upfront but your knee must have jerked too fast for you to read it carefully. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/137 "2012-07-12T19:56:43Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > To figure out what the common usage of other people is. Why should they care though? > [@](#): > > People don’t read physics textbooks to figure out the rules they’re supposed to make an effort to follow (“Oh, I’m supposed to fall at 9.8 m/s^2 now? Shit, all this time I’ve been doing it wrong. Better get it together from here out…”). People read physics textbooks to get an idea how the world around them has been observed to behave of its own accord, and use that information as they see fit. > > Dictionaries serve the same purpose. Not really, because the rules of physics don’t change. Your analogy might work if you said planets and stars don’t read physics textbooks. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/138 "2012-07-12T19:59:52Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > Why should they care though? That’s up to them. They don’t have to. They might find that they care for various reasons, such as understanding what others mean by a word they’ve never heard used before. > [@](#): > > Not really, because the rules of physics don’t change. Your analogy might work if you said planets and stars don’t read physics textbooks. You missed my edit, but you might also imagine a history textbook… You might also imagine the analogy you yourself proposed, which just as well neatly encapsulates the folly of prescriptivist fantasy; people, by and large, react to prescriptivist proclamations the way planets and stars would react to my drawing up a list of rules for how I think they ought to behave. Except they spend a lot more time nervous about it, despite largely not changing their ordinary, fluent speech. The actual grammatical rules of English are rules no one needs to be explicitly taught to follow, any more than one needs to be explicitly taught how to walk in gym class. One picks them up automatically by osmosis. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/139 "2012-07-12T20:01:31Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > And literally a few posts after Indistinguishable kindly pointed out the use of badly as an adjective throughout the ages. What is it like in your world, I wonder. In my world, there are fewer mistakes in communication. People understand each other better by following certain rules, even when others don’t. You are free to use the language in any way you want. No authority can force you to follow any rule whatsoever. Yet you do follow rules, all the time. Why? The idea that you either have rule created by an authority independent of the speakers, or you have totally democratic language completely free of any rules other than what happens by consensus, are both false. There’s no bright line between description and prescription. Don’t pretend there is. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2012, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871/140 "2012-07-12T20:06:40Z")
Because in this forum, conversing with this group of people, these standards are the ones that I find it best to follow. In another community, I have been known to say things like, “hay guize, whats up check out [blanks] thraed” because that fits that community’s standards. I speak and write differently depending on whether I’m talking to a parent, or a professor or a friend and whether it’s in a paper, on facebook or email. I can adapt like this because I’m not inflexibly bound to one idea of correct language. And if you were to go through my posts, you would see some where I do refrain from capital letters, punctuation and use nonstandard spelling because those choices create a tone that I wanted in that instance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-swiftly-herewith-consign-to-the-pit-the-ignorant-clowns-who-misconstrue-its/627871.md?page=8)