this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2026
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"Wrong username. Correct password."
"Uh.... who's password?"
I don’t know who is password, or why is password, or when is password, but I do know where is password, and it’s out there!
But... how is password? Secure enough?
Error: password already in use by CobainKiller94
*whose
"who's" is "who is"[1] or "who has"[2], and it can be wrestled into a possessive if you make "who" all or part of a name[3], but it's the wrong sort of possessive for this context. If you really want the possessive form, it ought to be phrased "which person's", which is mostly what "whose" means.
(An actual linguist would speak more about the genitive and how it works in English, but I'm not as capable.)
[1]: e.g. "Who's there?" [2]: e.g. "Who's let the cat out again?" [3]: e.g. "This is you-know-who's box of tricks."
Noun
prescriptivism
(linguistics) The practice of prescribing idealistic norms, as opposed to describing realistic forms, of linguistic usage.
E.g.
I envy these linguists' ability to either not be irked by grammar errors at all or to be able to deal with their irritation when errors arise.
They actually are the reverse of irked, cause like an archaeologist finding a new artefact, they find the cool thing of evidence of the shift of language.
Not errors, evidence of change
What's your opinion of the word "neologologist" and are you proposing that these "most linguists" are in fact described by it? And what do you think their opinion of it would be? ;p
I would say that most aren't, but some definitely are
It's a study of both the past and the present, many study both, many study just one, some flip-flop between
I also envy their ability to understand what was meant, because sometimes there are enough errors to make meaning completely impossible to discern
There's this thing in linguistics, casual language requires backchanneling - to respond back with either short utterances that show you understand, or to show confusion and then ask for clarity
The reason formal language is formalised, as in the shit used in essays, is that there is no easy way to say "what did you mean?" - the feedback loop is far too slow for that process and by the point the author(s) get to respond they likely forget what they meant as well
Well, that was an entirely unnecessary and lengthy correction to a mistake that was A) a typo I didn't notice from using swipe on my phone keyboard, not a misunderstanding on grammar, and B) not an error that rendered my comment confusing or indecipherable requiring your clarification. But thank you for your (air quotes) help. I really hope that you're a bot, not a person this annoying or one who writes that way.
I'm about 50/50 on grammar errors. They bother me either way, but sometimes I feel the need to correct them and try to explain why.
Today I seem to have worded it in a way that's rubbed people the wrong way. It has gone better. You win some, you lose some.
And yes I know I sound like an LLM. I used to not be able to communicate my ideas at all (flashback to not being able to string a 500 word essay together at school) but then I got a job working technical support and I had to figure out a way of getting my ideas and explanations across. And this is now how I communicate, for better or worse.
Unfortunately, LLMs learned how to communicate in a not dissimilar way. And so we sound alike.
I like the way you write, FWIW.