# Of course grammar is prescriptive.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [August 2, 2012, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222 "2012-08-02T21:44:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/41 "2012-08-06T03:20:43Z")
It is obvious I did not use enough smilies. :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@tapu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tapu)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/42 "2012-08-06T12:26:15Z")
You’re right, I stepped into the wrong room. This one’s for amateurs sitting around a beer bar. Which, hey, is fine–there are other rooms.
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### Author:  [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/43 "2012-08-06T19:10:20Z")
> [@colonial](#):
>
> No further discussion until you provide some documentation of your own.
>
> I want a linkie from you to some source firmly establishing that this Lowth
> guy was (1) dominant, and how (2) his dominance did more harm than good.
>
> Such petty gaucheries as the prohibition on ending sentences with a preposition
> are too trivial to mention. Churchill may have been the only English writer to write:
> “This is the type of nonsense up with which I will not put”, but he was not the only
> writer who has felt free to ignore it, without damage to clarity, style or reputation.
Funny let me remind you of.
> [@colonial](#):
>
> What you need to understand is that your repeating a wrong does not make it right.
Pot…meet kettle! I will not argue that pasted statement because it is not mine, nor is it my stand on the issue. It is 100% a straw-man argument.
Note that you fail to respond to the meat of the OP and return to your red herring via a straw-man argument that is parroting an earlier post.
So if you want to hand wave off actual issues with your argument that “without prescription is required or you get:”
> [@](#):
>
> “English speekee school learns to me language good”
With a post where I mentioned the author of a book that is a CITE and was actually used to teach grammar.
I will let you have the last word but the issue in this debate is not my argument. You are just ignoring the meat of the issue and taking all your toys home. There is concrete evidence that humans can speak a common language and develop highly cultural works without prescriptive grammar.
[The Complete Works of William Shakespeare](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/)
I will let you have the last word, because like most grammar police your argument is 100% about the minutia while ignoring the debate, oddly mirroring the OP’s original complaint.
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### Author:  [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/44 "2012-08-06T19:42:56Z")
no hav grammer! no hav spel! me do how want, no stupid prescriptiv thing but not lyk for me. cuz undrstand wut say i, dum not rulez for say. bad! bad! i talk how want. prescriptive suck mi dick, 4 not me grammer police get!
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/45 "2012-08-06T20:29:01Z")
Have you ever in your life met someone who spoke like that? Even people with zero formal education do not speak like that. The only way you can get someone to speak anything like that is with brain damage to the point of aphasia.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/46 "2012-08-06T21:53:08Z")
> [@tapu](#):
>
> You’re right, I stepped into the wrong room. This one’s for amateurs sitting around a beer bar.
Glad you noticed. There are other boards where degreed linguists and grammarians can continue this centuries-old chicken-and-egg debate. And plenty of beer bars for the pros to continue their ancient practice of drinking and disagreeing with each other. Here it’s catch as catch can, with some like you who know what they are talking about, others who do not, and still others who know about it and its history but want to make little jokes at a pedantic poster’s expense.
> [@Indistinguishable](#):
>
> Have you ever in your life met someone who spoke like that? Even people with zero formal education do not speak like that. The only way you can get someone to speak anything like that is with brain damage to the point of aphasia.
Are kids taught formal grammar anymore? I went to elementary and secondary school pre-Chomsky and our grammar teachings were prescriptive. Younger people seem to have been taught neither, yet I can understand them. They can’t spell or read, but they have their grammar down.
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### Author:  [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/47 "2012-08-06T23:21:18Z")
> [@rat avatar](#):
>
> …I will let you have the last word…
Thanks. Here ya go:
(from post #36)
> [@colonial](#):
>
> No further discussion until you provide some documentation of your own.
>
> I want a linkie from you to some source firmly establishing that this Lowth
> guy was (1) dominant, and how (2) his dominance did more harm than good…
---
### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/48 "2012-08-06T23:26:58Z")
> [@Full\_Tilt\_Boogie](#):
>
> And you learnt this philological pearl of wisdom, where, precisely?
You can start with Steven Pinker’s [_The Language Instinct_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Language_Instinct). You’d be surprised. Children pick up language with little to no instruction instinctually, or at least seemingly so. I learned English as a child even though my parents never spoke English around the house, and I didn’t receive any formal instruction until kindergarten. I spent time around refugees whose children picked up languages their parents didn’t speak in incredibly short periods of time (under one year). I’m simply astounded at the human capacity to naturally pick up language at an early age.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2012, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/49 "2012-08-07T00:55:49Z")
And you learned all that while alone and tied to a toilet? 😕
I’d better stop that. I suspect **colonial** and **tapu** already think I’m trolling.
Yes, children are extremely good at picking up languages and using grammatical rules they were never consciously taught by people who also learned them the [del]hard[/del] extremely easy way. Formal grammars, as we have been shown repeatedly in this thread, are recent developments and, even then, the rules took a long time to filter down to the masses. If they ever did. Which they didn’t, except in dribs and drabs. Prescription and description are interesting armchair games, but as **s0meguy** said, “all that really matters in language is that you can understand the person thats trying to communicate something.”
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### Author:  [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2012, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/50 "2012-08-07T16:40:56Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#):
>
> Have you ever in your life met someone who spoke like that? Even people with zero formal education do not speak like that. The only way you can get someone to speak anything like that is with brain damage to the point of aphasia.
The point is that I can speak that way if I want to, and if you don’t like it, you’re a prescriptive ninny and it’s your fault, not mine.
Or maybe not.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/51 "2012-08-07T16:45:25Z")
If you want to speak that way, knock yourself out _[Henny Youngman]…please![/Henny Youngman]_. I suspect you’ll find it hard to keep up, what with it not being the way you naturally speak. You’re only making things difficult for yourself, but that’s your prerogative.
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2012, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/52 "2012-08-07T16:47:38Z")
But you don’t want to and neither does anyone else so what you think is your point is moot, anyway. We do not need prescriptivism to guard against nonsensical babbling. The human drive to communicate is effective enough at that.
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### Author:  [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/53 "2012-08-07T17:07:31Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#):
>
> If you want to speak that way, knock yourself out _[Henny Youngman]…please![/Henny Youngman]_. I suspect you’ll find it hard to keep up, what with it not being the way you naturally speak. You’re only making things difficult for yourself, but that’s your prerogative.
But what if I get everyone else to write that way? Then you’ll be the one who must assimilate. You’ll be the one making things difficult for yourself if you don’t. I’m just working on the next changes in common use. Don’t blame me for that.
I give you credit for trying not to sound too prescriptive though. Your post sounds like a parent of a teenager who really really wants to tell your kid he just can’t do something incredibly stupid, but knows the days of just ordering him around are over. “You’ll regret it!” (finger wag)
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2012, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/54 "2012-08-07T17:09:29Z")
Well, yes. If you do manage to get everyone else to speak that way (or write that way, though writing is much more artificial to begin with), then I will feel pressure to assimilate. You are shockingly correct in your assessment of how the world works.
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2012, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/55 "2012-08-07T17:09:30Z")
Mind that first if, it’s a doozy.
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### Author:  [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2012, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/56 "2012-08-07T17:18:17Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#):
>
> Well, yes. If you do manage to get everyone else to speak that way (or write that way, though writing is much more artificial to begin with), then I will feel pressure to assimilate. You are shockingly correct in your assessment of how the world works.
Great! So you can nag me about not writing “correctly” until I succeed in making my way of writing correct.
In other words, you can be prescriptive. And this can co-exist with descriptivism.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2012, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/57 "2012-08-07T17:34:34Z")
You seem to be laboring under the misconception that I’ve at some point conceded a desire to nag you about not speaking correctly. But I never did that, did I? The one thing I explicitly said was “If you want to speak that way, knock yourself out”.
I’ll give you this, though: everyone is free to nag everyone else about the way they speak, if they feel an urge to engage in such nagging, whether the naggee is speaking naturally or with deliberate artifice. In fact, you’re all free to nag anyone about anything. You’re all free to do whatever the hell you like.
And I’ll still think all the prescriptivist nagging in the world is pointless and misguided.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2012, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/58 "2012-08-07T17:41:05Z")
(I don’t think I successfully expressed what I wanted to with that last edit message. What I meant to buffer against was the objection “Oh, really, all ‘prescriptivist’ nagging is pointless and misguided? So you don’t think there is ever any point in telling anyone to behave a certain way?”, taking my reference to “prescriptivism” as much more general than merely linguistic…)
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/59 "2012-08-07T17:47:29Z")
[Sorta-relevant article from NPR.](http://www.npr.org/2012/08/02/157616528/r-grammar-gaffes-ruining-the-language-maybe-not) It’s interesting how moronic some of the commentators are.
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### Author:  [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-grammar-is-prescriptive/630222/60 "2012-08-07T17:54:15Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#):
>
> You seem to be laboring under the misconception that I’ve at some point conceded a desire to nag you about not speaking correctly. But I never did that, did I? The one thing I explicitly said was “If you want to speak that way, knock yourself out”.
But would you speak that way? Why not?
> [@](#):
>
> I’ll give you this, though: everyone is free to nag everyone else about the way they speak, if they feel an urge to engage in such nagging, whether the naggee is speaking naturally or with deliberate artifice. In fact, you’re all free to nag anyone about anything. You’re all free to do whatever the hell you like.
Finally!
Please tell English teachers everywhere to STFU already.
> [@](#):
>
> And I’ll still think all the prescriptivist nagging in the world is pointless and misguided.
But we won’t understand what you’re saying.
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