Comment on 2011 Less Wrong Census / Survey

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 02:56:43 GMT

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.)

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