Linguistics

I've always said the dictionary is a follower not a leader, by the time a word gets added to the dictionary it's already established widespread usage

The same rules apply to gods, according to Terry Pratchet

Gonna go on Countdown with the line “Dictionaries aren’t rule books, they’re record books” and fight Susie Dent.

The problem is that people frequently use this type of argument when they are unable to spell or follow the basic rules of syntax and grammar instead of simply admitting they're wrong.

Language does change, over time and across many cultures. It doesn't mean that anything you write is automatically correct.

I've always been a big advocate of the idea that the only part of communication that matters is communication. If people understand you then congrats you've successfully languaged

I love militant descriptivists

Just going to share this little gem again...

One thing I learned as an information technology engineer: language is a tool for communication. As long as the sender can send its message unobstructed and as long as the receiver receives and understands the message as intended, the information transmission can be considered a successs.

And still I maintain that "alot" is not a word.

As a l33+ |><|@z0r, I'm here to criticize your command of the English language.

I dig the variety of topics on this comm, and I super appreciate how it doesn't get STEMlordy at all.

End prescriptuhvist speling! We haf nuthing to loose butt hour wigly red underlyns!

That said I feel like when people are referring to whether or not something "is a word" they're referring to whether not is has seen historical/widespread usage, not "has somebody ever just decided it meant something, somewhere, at some point"

"a language that doesn't adapt to an ever changing society is bound to be lost", sure, but adapt too quickly and you lose the ability to communicate between groups of people.

There needs to be some compromise where new words are adopted, and changed words are accepted, without flooding the language with garbage. For example, English should still be taught in schools, and English teachers should still have the freedom of correcting the writing kids produce, and taking points off for "mistakes".

Like, if you go pure descriptivist, "it's" and "its" can now mean the same thing. There is no ability to distinguish between their, they're and there. A business email describing a product as "cheugy, no cap" is perfectly acceptable and it's up to the reader to figure it out, because every word is a real word and perfectly valid, and every grammar deviation is acceptable because languages evolve.

Even on social media, I think it's fair to push back on "mistakes" that make it hard to understand something. An error that might take a poster 1 second to fix, might cost the world minutes, as thousands of people each take a few seconds to puzzle out what the OP meant to write.

Languages are about communication, and that can suffer whether the language police are too rigid and forbid any deviation, are too easily bribed and allow for anything.

While that's correct and all, it still irks me when somebody uses a word that has a shorter, older variant. (Gives side-eye to orientated)

Great post, I offer my most enthusiastic contrafribularities.

Gronk. Now bleet glanmar.

I'm old enough to have noticed that a huge amount of language has changed in American English in the Westcoast at least. It's pretty remarkable even myself and other middle aged people I know have changed their word use and slang.

"refrigerate" at least has sensible etymological roots in its constituent components.

The problem with brain rot lingo is that it isn't constructed from precedent but a decay therefrom, corrupted by niche "meta" references that are little more than inside jokes that escaped their in-group, divorced of the context that brought them about.

...

Then again, though, the most popular word that humans speak all over the world is "OK", which is itself a memetic corruption of a fad, wherein people were saying "All Correct" with a deliberately exaggerated fake British accent: "Oll Korrect" (which became abbreviated).

And brain rot does have the fact that it's very funny going for it. It sounds silly which makes it fun to say and it pisses people off which makes it even funnier, because getting mad about it is a drastic overreaction. So I don't think it'll even really BECOME an actual serious problem, because the moment it hits mainstream and corporations start publishing commercials about "skibidi Ohio GYATT" it's going to implode like "it's morbin time" burned Sony.

Otherwise, constructing new words out of extant etymological particles is DELIGHTFULLY useful. In Minecraft, I built an Enfenestrator:
A window through which zombies throw themselves into a catchment chamber for culling and (when zombified villagers are isolated) curing.

ferpectly cromulent!

Skibidi rizz

So why teach English at all? People could just make it all up theirself.

I’m curious. How many people does it take to make a word a word?

ITT we fight against the evil descriptivist windmills

While I get the point they’re making, I have a counterargument:

Ngqnund urnidng bptgx durunbde druxng.

What, you didn’t understand that? Are you dissing be just because you didn’t bother to learn new words?

Learned this a while ago, from an excellent YA writer:

No, snuffles005, that doesn't mean "yzax" is a valid word for Scrabble.

When you read texts of an ancient language than span several centuries, and the language itself stays the same, it's a strong indicator the language was no longer spoken.

Living languages always change. Only dead languages stay the same.

One thing I learned: fuck dictionaries. Be creative. Invent words if you need them. As long as it's understandable, that's all fine.

A Elbereth Gilthoniel,

silivren penna míriel

o mendel aglar elenath!

Na-chaered palan-díriel

o galadhremmin ennorath,

Fanuilos, le linnathon

nef aear, sí nef aearon!

Nucular. Checkmate, atheists.

My ex-wife was a word snob. I wish I'd seen this when I was married to her.

Fine, but I'm still not happy about 'performant'

Except if you're talking about Turkish, TDK dictates what words are real, how they're written, what they mean and other grammar and writing rules.

English dictionaries are also very much on the descriptive side of things as of late, especially compared to their counterparts among other languages.

Dunno how the tea totallers do things but here in burgerland we actually have sort of a minor annual event finding out the latest slang terms and grammars that have entered this year's edition of the webster dictionary, and which words have fallen out of significant use enough to be dropped from the book too.

I love militant descriptivists

Given our thoughts are largely impacted by the vocabulary we know, being able to come up with new words can be considered a super power!

But there is no single word in modern English for "the day after tomorrow" or "the day before yesterday".

In other languages, maybe. But not in English.

Some people think god is an English teacher and his cock is a huge red pen.

Ok but "melty" isn't a real word and I'll die on this hill

even if it's a real word I hate it

Yeah, yeah, but where's the fun in that? Trolling the shit out of people is way too much fun to not be pedantic.

I thought you couldn't be snob and captain obvious at the same time, but here we are.

On the other hand, with your degree in linguistics are you granted a special permission to use random capitals?