Prescriptivism: Not what the doctor ordered

Well, maybe sometimes

There are two kinds of language nuts in the world: the first believe there’s a right way to speak and write and that those who wander from the true path must be corrected if Western civilisation is not to descend into anarchy. Such people are often called prescriptivists, although I prefer the endearing term “grammar Nazi”.

The other group, of which I consider myself a paid-up member, are descriptivists. Easily identifiable by our calm, level-headed approach to life, we are non-judgemental (are you listening, prescriptivists?) and more interested in how English is used than whether the way it’s being used is “correct”.

I believe I have a few heavyweights on my side, including the redoubtable Steven Pinker, who once compared trying to correct someone’s language usage with informing a dolphin it’s swimming technique is wrong. His point: language is an innate skill for humans. We can’t do it wrong.

If you feel moved to choose a side here, hold on for a second. For in reality, virtually no one is a full-on prescriptivist or descriptivist. And for a very good reason, which I propose to share with you by way of a story.

I’m coaching someone at the moment whose first language is not English. Her main challenge, shared by most who learn a second language as an adult, is mastering aspects of grammar that are unfamiliar in her first language, and which native English speakers never give a second thought to.

She’s looking for someone who can help her get this stuff right.

There’s a part of me that wants to say, “Don’t worry about that. Knowing when to use and not use the definite or indefinite article won’t make any meaningful difference to the clarity of your writing. Likewise, being great with tenses.”

But these things do matter because not being facile with them gives some people a reason to dismiss what she’s saying. For her, the difference between correct and incorrect English is the size of her pay packet.

So I’m being a prescriptivist with her, telling her when she’s doing it wrong, and how to do it right.

Webster’s Third New International Dictionary. It resolutely refused to dictate “correct” vs “incorrect” usages, thus ushering in the beginning of the end of Western civilisation.

I’m also a prescriptivist when I’m editing. If you’re my client, comprise does not mean include. Nor is it correct to say a house is comprised of four bedrooms. And no, I don’t care if all your colleagues use comprise in those ways. They’re wrong, and you’re paying me good money to keep you on the straight and narrow.

It’s had me take a fresh look at the whole debate, and where I’ve got to is that the supposed war between prescriptivists and descriptivists is largely a fiction - and that should there be diehards on either side, they’d be smart to soften their stance a little.

Prescriptivism is useful - necessary, in fact - if what’s wanted is consistency of style. Across what? Across whatever publications or documents are under discussion. Among professionals in a business setting. It’s why publishing houses have style guides and workplaces expect their people to write in a way that conforms to standard English.

But to use that as an argument for “correct” versus “incorrect” English is to confuse categories. The kind of writing I’m talking about is, first, specific to a particular setting and, second, writing only - not spoken English.

Using the accepted version of English within a group is like conforming to a dress code. Everyone understands that they’ll be judged on what they wear, and everyone acts accordingly; usually, by wearing what’s expected, but sometimes by deliberately flouting the code. Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi took the second route in 2021 by refusing to wear a tie in Parliament, instead wearing a traditional Māori pendant, and got kicked out of the House for his trouble. The following day, however, he was allowed back in - still tieless. Parliament, wisely, recognised there were bigger matters to deal with.

Despite the fracas, Waititi’s actions actually reinforced Parliament’s dress code. At no point did he dispute the requirement to wear business attire in the House; his argument was simply about what constitutes acceptable business attire. He managed to shift the needle a little (Parliament did away with the tie edict thanks to him), but only a little.

Before those events, it would have been valid for one of his advisors to point to the pendant and say, prescriptively, “that’s the wrong thing to wear in Parliament”. But that advisor would be a fool to assert the pendant was therefore the wrong thing to wear anywhere.

Rawiri Waititi wearing a traditional Māori pendant, or hei-tiki, and trademark cowboy hat. “I took off the colonial tie as a sign that it continued to colonise, to choke and to suppress our Māori rights,” he wrote soon after his ejection from Parliament.

Outside of Parliament pendants are mostly fine, and outside of business writing, so is much of what the editor in me calls incorrect writing.

One dictionary that’s long been famous for “relaxing the rules” of English is Merriam-Webster. In 1961, its third edition (then just Webster’s Dictionary) took the unthinkable step of no longer describing fringe words as “colloquial”, “correct”, “incorrect”, “proper”, “improper”, “erroneous”, “humorous”, “jocular”, “poetic”, or “contemptuous”, instead choosing to leave them unlabelled, along with all the prim and proper words.

The reaction was something to behold. American writer, critic, philosopher and activist Dwight Macdonald took time off his many other activities to write that Webster’s had “untuned the string, made a sop of the solid structure of English”. Of Webster’s non-dismissal of ain’t, Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper sniffily opined: “[this] will comfort the ignorant, confer approval upon the mediocre, and subtly imply that proper English is the tool of only the snob”. The New York Times called the edition “bolshevik”, and the Chicago Daily News wrote that its approval of like as a conjunction (famously illustrated in the timeless tagline “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should”) signified “a general decay in values”.

Each of those writers wanted Webster’s to take a prescriptivist approach; to rule on correct vs incorrect and proper vs improper usages. But few dictionaries set out to do that; most are descriptivist, reporting on current (and sometimes historical) usages rather than judging their merits.

It’s an approach I recommend to my everyday prescriptivism friends. One reason is that much of what people call people “ungrammatical” English is perfectly fine. What they’re getting all het up about isn’t grammar, but register - someone adopting a less formal tone than the critic approves of.

It leads to ridiculous posts like this one, which lists five supposed “grammar mistakes”, none of which is a mistake at all. The most you can say about any of them - that is, the first one - is that a careful writer would avoid them in a formal setting, just as a male New Zealand parliamentarian would once have avoided going tieless.

The point? When in Rome. And when you’re not, don’t. That would be silly.

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Bits and specious

The world’s only bilingual palindrome?

The imminent closedown of Newshub here in New Zealand has unsettled everyone in New Zealand who values strong, independent journalism. David Farrier - no shrinking violet in the strong and independent stakes himself - responded by sharing this sobering piece by US journalist Ed Zitron on the dismantling of media by the capitalist machine.

The Guardian recently posted an article with the headline “Terrible news for pedants as Merriam-Webster relaxes the rules of English”. Nothing about the article is really news: the so-called rules Merriam-Webster discusses have been openly flouted for decades.

Also, don’t mess with Merriam-Webster if you don’t want to get owned. (Keep scrolling.)

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Quote of the week

When I split an infinitive, god damn it, I split it so it stays split.
Raymond Chandler