Most linguists in this age believe that prescriptivism is outmoded and should no longer be used
Most linguists in this age believe that descriptivism is a more accurate model of language than prescriptivism
Most linguists in this age believe that "correcting" language unnecessarily is actively harmful, as it stifles the evolution of a living growing thing, which prescriptivism fails to accurately model
Most linguists in this age agree the more important factor is CONTEXT, that you should use the correct language style for the context, whereas prescriptivism falls flat as it ignores context. Contextual Language is the idea that you use a different style of language talking to your boss then you do to your friend, then you do to your best friend, than you do to a stranger

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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.

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 20 hours ago

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

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I also envy their ability to understand what was meant, because sometimes there are enough errors to make meaning completely impossible to discern

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

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