# Language prescriptivism is a moral issue? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 30, 2010, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431 "2010-11-30T18:04:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![statsman1982](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@statsman1982](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/statsman1982)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2010, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/41 "2010-12-03T16:56:06Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Heh. I used the “berry” example in college, when some wanna-be-smartass told me that a tomato was a fruit, not a vegetable. “Sure,” I said, “if you’re talking to a botanist, but botanists use the word differently from how cooks use it. If you’re talking to a botanist, a strawberry isn’t a fruit.” > > Boy oh boy did that piss him off. He flat out thought I was lying, and I don’t think I could ever even convince him to look it up. Well, I just learned something about berries. Jargon is the one area where I see prescriptivism as being vital, like stoplights are vital for traffic. If people use specialized terms to mean whatever, then people end up talking past each other. In my field, when someone uses the word “random,” they don’t mean haphazard or arbitrary; they mean it in the specific probabilistic sense. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/42 "2010-12-03T20:44:51Z")
> [@statsman1982](#): > > Well, I just learned something about berries. > > Jargon is the one area where I see prescriptivism as being vital, like stoplights are vital for traffic. If people use specialized terms to mean whatever, then people end up talking past each other. In my field, when someone uses the word “random,” they don’t mean haphazard or arbitrary; they mean it in the specific probabilistic sense. I understand that mathematicians are quite put-out with the way that the rest of the world uses the term “lowest common denominator”. It’s a very good idea to have a “standardized” English. It facilitates communication, slows the trans-generational evolution that tends to make it difficult to read the past and write to the future, and makes non-standardized English fun by giving it something to contrast with playfully. But “standardized” isn’t more right in any intrinsic sense. The zeal of pedants arises out of a confusion of standard with correct. Anyone who thinks it’s simply wrong to end a sentence with a preposition betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the English language. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/43 "2010-12-03T20:55:29Z")
The thing with jargon is, it’s restricted to its field. If someone says “Man, I did a lot of work getting my tax returns filled out”, I wouldn’t correct them by pointing out that the forms don’t have all that much mass, and they stayed at the same height on the table and didn’t accelerate, anyway. By the physics-jargon definition of “work”, it’s hardly any work at all to fill out tax forms, but that’s only relevant to people using the physics-jargon definition. ---
**Author:** ![statsman1982](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@statsman1982](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/statsman1982)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2010, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/44 "2010-12-03T21:23:45Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#): > > I understand that mathematicians are quite put-out with the way that the rest of the world uses the term “lowest common denominator”. > > It’s a very good idea to have a “standardized” English. It facilitates communication, slows the trans-generational evolution that tends to make it difficult to read the past and write to the future, and makes non-standardized English fun by giving it something to contrast with playfully. But “standardized” isn’t more right in any intrinsic sense. The zeal of pedants arises out of a confusion of standard with correct. Anyone who thinks it’s simply wrong to end a sentence with a preposition betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the English language. I thought that was one of those rules that even pedants see as nonsensical, along with refusing to split infinitives. The reason the latter was even an issue, I recall, is that pedants wanted to make English roughly equivalent to Latin in that regard. As I understand it (never took Latin), infinitives are single words, so it’s impossible to split them. But English isn’t Latin, so there’s no reason to not split them. The Fiske book, although the subtitle is “The Curmudgeon’s Compendium of Excruciatingly Correct Grammar,” doesn’t actually get into much grammar. It’s just a dictionary of so-called “misused” words. I’m actually a bit more prescriptivist when it comes to grammar. It bothers me when someone writes “The books is on the table,” rather than “The books are on the table,” for example. I also don’t like the use of apostrophes to indicate possession (“The book’s are on the table”). However, I’m lenient (as is my dissertation advisor, more importantly) when using apostrophes to indicate plural variables, as in “each of the x\_i’s is a predictor variable.” I don’t really know why I’m bothered by some things and not others. I suppose one distinction between my pet peeves and Fiske’s is that there doesn’t seem to be a good reason to break from tradition (which is really all prescriptivists have with respect to English). Traditionally, we like to make the number of the subject and the verb agree. “Books” is a plural word, so why not use “are”? For the apostrophe example, we have a traditional way of making singular nouns possessive for most words–ad an s or es. The apostrophe doesn’t need to be conscripted to do the job of something else. However, “x\_i” is not a word, so tradition doesn’t say what to do. There, using an apostrophe seems okay to me. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/45 "2010-12-03T21:29:44Z")
> [@statsman1982](#): > > I thought that was one of those rules that even pedants see as nonsensical, along with refusing to split infinitives. Quite a few pedants still cling ferociously to those old rules, and I even unconsciously follow them occasionally, but by and large the war on them has been won. Or more accurately, the war they waged on actual English has been lost. ---
**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:** [December 3, 2010, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/46 "2010-12-03T23:40:08Z")
> [@statsman1982](#): > > Well, I just learned something about berries. > > Jargon is the one area where I see prescriptivism as being vital, like stoplights are vital for traffic. If people use specialized terms to mean whatever, then people end up talking past each other. In my field, when someone uses the word “random,” they don’t mean haphazard or arbitrary; they mean it in the specific probabilistic sense. I can agree with this. The way I see it, certain fields have set up what amount to rules of the game. If you’re talking about the scientific theory of whatever, and you use the word “theory” in a way completely antithetical to how scientists use it, then it’s not that you’re using it incorrectly **per se** , but rather it’s that you’re breaking the rules of the game that scientists have set up. Knock yourself out using the word however you’d like, but understand that you’re not part of the conversation scientists have as scientists. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2010, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/47 "2010-12-04T05:05:14Z")
> [@](#): > > But English isn’t Latin, so there’s no reason to not split them. It’s really, really hard to split an infinitive in English, too, and I’ve yet to find an example that wouldn’t make a native speaker cringe. What you just posted there is not, despite what you probably intended, a split infinitive: “to not split” is a perfectly valid infinitive form of the compound verb “not split”. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2010, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/48 "2010-12-04T05:12:11Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It’s really, really hard to split an infinitive in English, too, and I’ve yet to find an example that wouldn’t make a native speaker cringe. “To boldly go where no man has gone before” makes people who adhere to faux Latin rules cringe. The rest of us don’t care. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/49 "2010-12-04T19:01:04Z")
“To boldly go” isn’t a split infinitive, either. But “To where boldly go no man has gone before”, which is a split infinitive, _would_ make a native speaker cringe. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2010, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/50 "2010-12-04T19:06:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > “To boldly go” isn’t a split infinitive, either. You are not using the most widely understood definition of a split infinitive. [ > [@](#): > > A split infinitive is an English-language grammatical construction in which a word or phrase, usually an adverb or adverbial phrase, comes between the marker to and the bare infinitive (uninflected) form of a verb. A famous split infinitive occurs in the opening sequence of the Star Trek television series: to boldly go where no man has gone before. Here, the adverb “boldly” splits the full infinitive “to go.” More rarely, the term compound split infinitive is used to describe situations in which the infinitive is split by more than one word: The population is expected to more than double in the next ten years. ]([Split infinitive - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive)) [ > [@](#): > > What are split infinitives? > > Split infinitives happen when you put an adverb between to and a verb, for example: > > She used to secretly admire him. > You have to really watch him. ]([Oxford Languages | The Home of Language Data](http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/page/grammartipsplitinfinitive)) [ > [@](#): > > Dear Grammar Geekess, CMOS has not, since the thirteenth edition (1983), frowned on the split infinitive. The sixteenth edition suggests, to take one example, allowing split infinitives when an intervening adverb is used for emphasis (see paragraphs 5.106 and 5.168). In this day and age, it seems, an injunction against splitting infinitives is one of those shibboleths whose only reason for survival is to give increased meaning to the lives of those who can both identify by name a discrete grammatical, syntactic, or orthographic entity and notice when that entity has been somehow besmirched. Many such shibboleths—the en dash, for example—are worthy of being held onto. But why tamper with such sentences as the following? > > Its five-year mission is to explore new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. ]([Topic Q&A List](http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/SplitInfinitives/SplitInfinitives01.html)) ---
**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:** [December 4, 2010, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/51 "2010-12-04T19:10:41Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > “To boldly go” isn’t a split infinitive, either. Explain please because to go sure looks like an infinitive to me and that boldly is splitting it right down the middle. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2010, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/52 "2010-12-04T21:49:24Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Explain please because to go sure looks like an infinitive to me and that boldly is splitting it right down the middle. He’s saying that “boldly go” should be treated as one verb, something like “boldlygo” – “To boldlygo where no man has gone before.” It’s a sensible way to look at it, but (as already mentioned) not what most people understand by “split infinitive”. ---
**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:** [December 6, 2010, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/53 "2010-12-06T06:49:04Z")
Why should we do that? There’s no reason why we should want to treat boldly go as one verb and no evidence that people do. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/54 "2010-12-06T08:43:33Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Why should we do that? There’s no reason why we should want to treat boldly go as one verb and no evidence that people do. An equally no evidence that “to go” forms an infinitive that cannot or should not ever by “split” by an adverb. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/55 "2010-12-06T09:42:27Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Explain please because to go sure looks like an infinitive to me and that boldly is splitting it right down the middle. The argument is that “go” is the infinitive form of the verb, and that the phrase “to go” is only one way the infinitive can be used in English. For example, “She will go” and “Let us go” are other sentences containing the infinitive “go”. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/56 "2010-12-06T12:08:53Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > The argument is that “go” is the infinitive form of the verb, and that the phrase “to go” is only one way the infinitive can be used in English. For example, “She will go” and “Let us go” are other sentences containing the infinitive “go”. That’s another way to look at it, but probably not the one that was intended, as then it would be impossible to split an infinitive. This would invalidate his example “To where boldly go no man has gone before”. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/57 "2010-12-06T14:00:47Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > That’s another way to look at it, but probably not the one that was intended, as then it would be impossible to split an infinitive. This would invalidate his example “To where boldly go no man has gone before”. Right. He’s saying it’s possible to split an infinitive but denying that adverbs like “not” or “boldly” do it, which runs counter to every definition of “split infinitive” I’ve ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/58 "2010-12-06T14:21:07Z")
As far as I can tell, he’s saying that split infinitives are still ungrammatical in English, so ‘to boldly go’ can’t be a split infinitive because it’s grammatical. It’s like saying atheists are immoral, so John can’t be an atheist because he’s a nice guy. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/59 "2010-12-06T14:25:23Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > As far as I can tell, he’s saying that split infinitives are still ungrammatical in English, so ‘to boldly go’ can’t be a split infinitive because it’s grammatical. No. He’s saying that “to boldly go” is not a split infinitive because “boldly go” is a compound verb, the infinitive of which is “to boldly go.” It’s just a different perspective from what most would be used to. (… different from … that to which … most would be used, er.) (As an aside, why is Tapatalk not obeying my sig preferences? Argh.) ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2010, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431/60 "2010-12-06T14:33:03Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > No. He’s saying that “to boldly go” is not a split infinitive because “boldly go” is a compound verb, the infinitive of which is “to boldly go.” It’s just a different perspective from what most would be used to. (… different from … that to which … most would be used, er.) Right, that’s his rationalization. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-prescriptivism-is-a-moral-issue/562431.md?page=4)