Things that are pointless to worry about #953 - the dictionary

[andrewducker]

There are two schools of thought as far as language goes, and like most areas of human endeavour that involve two opposing theories, neither is actually much use in real life.

You can either fall on the Prescriptive or Descriptive side of the argument. On the one side is the belief that dictionaries prescribe the limits of the language, telling you what each word means and giving you a complete definition of each word. Any use of language as it's laid out in the dictionary is correct, any other use of the language is incorrect. On the other side are those that believe that dictionaries merely describe how real people use the language. They view language as an entirely fluid construction and where real usage and the dictionary conflict, the dictionary is in the wrong.

Real life is, of course, never so simple. At some point people need to be taught how to understand a language, and at that point the dictionary is fairly invaluable. Unless we are going to be limited in communication to just those people who we grow up around (and therefore naturally understand the language of) then some formal definitions are going to be needed so that we can usefully understand people who didn't grow up with the same slang as us. And dictionaries cannot be static, because ordinary people don't check the dictionary before coming up with new words. If enough language changes occur without the dictionary taking note, then the dictionaries don't actually tell you about the languahe you're nominally speaking.

The only sane option is the one that most dictionaries actually use - teams of researchers looking for new word usage and keeping the dictionaries up to date as a reference of a living language, while most people insist that in formal writing, at least, that not only are words used according to their dictionary meaning, but in fact go further than that and insist on a small subset of more formal language. It makes sense, after all, to use language that the people you are communicating with will understand and will carry the impact you desire, whether that language is formal and well-defined, or the latest slang, invented only a few days ago.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I wonder how well the prescriptive/descriptive divide maps onto the Myers-Briggs Judgmental/Perceptive category? I lack any emotional understanding of both people who fall into the Judgmental category and of anyone who favors a prescriptive definition of language and my reactions to both are effectively identical - from my PoV, fixed universal rules are the result of either not having found the exceptions or ignoring the exceptions and any accurate description of any facet of the world includes a mass of seeming (and perhaps actual) contradictions, exceptions, and temporary jury-rigged physical, social, ethical, and psychological principles.