dbaupp comments on 2011 Less Wrong Census / Survey - Less Wrong

77 Post author: Yvain 01 November 2011 06:28PM

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Comment author: dbaupp 04 November 2011 12:51:27PM * 6 points [-]

Oops

Gah! A single data point tells you very little about over-/underconfidence! Please, please stop acting like getting a 60% certain thing wrong (or 20% certain thing right) is a mistake.

A die has an 18% chance of rolling a 6. And that still happens. A die has a 66% chance of rolling a number larger than 2, and that sometimes doesn't happen. There is nothing unusual about these things, and the same applies for these estimation-with-confidence exercises!

(This isn't directed at you specifically, but there have been a few instances of this in this thread, and your comment was the "final straw")

Comment author: Prismattic 04 November 2011 10:32:45PM * 8 points [-]

I don't mean to be pedantic, but I have seen numerous people make this mistake on Lesswrong, so I am pointing it out:

1 die
2 or more dice

Comment author: MixedNuts comment score below threshold [+] (9 children)

Comment author: komponisto 07 November 2011 02:58:52PM * 7 points [-]

Downvoted not for the objection but for the use of the term "descriptivist" as if it meant "the point of view that prestige language forms don't exist" (or "the denial that a particular usage is non-prestigious") rather than "the point of view that the subject of linguistics should deal with empirical propositions and not normative ones".

Prismattic wasn't making a claim about what the subject of linguistics should deal with, but rather simply an object-level claim that a particular usage is unprestigious. You should have responded with a simple denial of the claim, if you thought it was false ("suck my BrE cock" would have been more appropriate, if you accepted the link's contention -- although honestly I probably would have objected then too on the grounds that (1) plenty of AmE speakers would like "dice" to be singular, and it would never have occurred to me that there was anything British about this, and (2) you're French, and have no business taking sides in AmE vs BrE wars!).

This is a very common confusion which needs correction (much more urgently than the question of whether "dice" can be singular).

Comment author: satt 08 November 2011 02:28:37AM 1 point [-]

Downvoted not for the objection but for the use of the term "descriptivist" as if it meant "the point of view that prestige language forms don't exist"

Prismattic wasn't making a claim about what the subject of linguistics should deal with, but rather simply an object-level claim that a particular usage is unprestigious.

Is this right? Prismattic wrote (or, at least, has edited their comment to say) that singular "dice" is a "mistake", not that it is unprestigious. MixedNuts linked evidence that it isn't necessarily a mistake. The "descriptivist cock" thing is a jokey nod to how descriptivists often rebut prescriptivist hypercorrection (i.e. what MixedNuts was doing), no?

Comment author: komponisto 08 November 2011 02:42:54AM * 1 point [-]

Prismattic wrote (or, at least, has edited their comment to say) that singular "dice" is a "mistake", not that it is unprestigious.

"Mistake" (or "wrong" or "incorrect") is exactly what people usually say when enforcing sociolinguistic norms. ("Unprestigious" or "low status" is jargon, specific to those who understand the concepts of status-signaling and so forth as discussed on Less Wrong, Overcoming Bias, and in evolutionary psychology and anthropology, etc.)

descriptivists often rebut prescriptivist hypercorrection

This is not an example of hypercorrection.

Comment author: satt 08 November 2011 02:56:43AM 0 points [-]

descriptivists often rebut prescriptivist hypercorrection

This is not an example of hypercorrection.

Oops, you're right. But substitute "overly general criticism that attacks a valid usage" for "hypercorrection" and I think my point stands.

When someone describes a usage as a "mistake" it does normally connote a lack of prestige. But I don't think it follows that someone disagreeing with that description, and labelling their disagreement as descriptivist, is necessarily implying that descriptivism is about denying variation in the prestige of usages. They might simply mean that rebutting overly broad "mistake" claims is the kind of thing descriptivists do, which is how I read MixedNuts. (It seems the more obvious reading to me, though this likely says more about me than you or MixedNuts.)

Comment author: komponisto 08 November 2011 03:16:01PM * 4 points [-]

I don't think it follows that someone disagreeing with that description, and labelling their disagreement as descriptivist, is necessarily implying that descriptivism is about denying variation in the prestige of usages. They might simply mean that rebutting overly broad "mistake" claims is the kind of thing descriptivists do

In that case they should not label the disagreement as "descriptivist", because descriptivism is entirely incidental to the dispute (even if the person happens to be a descriptivist).

It is logically impossible to refute a prescriptive claim with a descriptive one; and one's interest in description cannot itself provide any support for one's prescriptive claims (which include disputes of others' prescriptive claims). If I say that "ain't" is an improper word, and you say "I disagree, because I'm a descriptivist", then you are misunderstanding what descriptivism means. (Descriptivism is not a stance within a prescriptive debate!)

Note that some people in the field of linguistics are themselves confused about this (in particular, anyone who condemns prescriptive grammar as an enterprise is to be suspected of such confusion). For more context, see this comment.

Comment author: satt 10 November 2011 01:50:43AM * 0 points [-]

In that case they should not label the disagreement as "descriptivist", because descriptivism is entirely incidental to the dispute (even if the person happens to be a descriptivist).

For a formal argument about descriptivism I'd agree with your "should". I disagree for a throwaway joke playing (as far as I can see) on an implicit understanding that descriptivists often go out of their way to rebut undue prescriptivism. (But I guess this is a side debate about our personal thresholds for jokers making a punchline land by relying on a word's connotation instead of its formal meaning.)

It is logically impossible to refute a prescriptive claim with a descriptive one; and one's interest in description cannot itself provide any support for one's prescriptive claims (which include disputes of others' prescriptive claims). If I say that "ain't" is an improper word, and you say "I disagree, because I'm a descriptivist", then you are misunderstanding what descriptivism means.

I might be misunderstanding something, because I think you're only correct given particular, narrow meanings of e.g. "improper" & "mistake". People often use words like these in another way: to make prescriptive claims that simultaneously put forward and rely on (whether explicitly or not) descriptive claims that can potentially be refuted by another descriptive claim. If I say "'ain't' isn't a proper word", I could mean a number of things. I might mean that "ain't" shouldn't be used because it connotes low status tout court. If so, pointing out a dialect or subculture in which it indicates high status would refute me. I might mean that "ain't" shouldn't be used because it's a neologism. Pointing out that it's an old usage would then refute me. I might mean that "ain't" shouldn't be used because it's difficult to understand. Survey data showing that most language speakers readily understand it would then refute me. These would be examples of refuting a prescriptive claim with a descriptive one.

Sure, strictly these aren't direct refutations of the prescriptive claim. But in practice some prescriptive claims live or die on the basis of some falsifiable descriptive claim. I suspect most prescriptive claims made by everyday people do; prescriptions that are just bald assertions are harder to defend.

Comment author: Prismattic 07 November 2011 11:52:27PM 3 points [-]

I'm not quite sure why your rooster is so exercised by this particular subject, but I don't put out for poultry on the first date.

Now I am curious, though, if Julius Caesar is routinely quoted in British sources as saying "The dice is cast" at the Rubicon.

dbaupp comments on 2011 Less Wrong Census / Survey - Less Wrong

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