OPINION ARTICLE - CATCH IT, BIN IT, KILL IT: PRESCRIPTIVISM VS DESCRIPTIVISM

(Not the best so just some ideas thrown together)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2016/apr/20/grammar-snobs-are-patronising-pretentious-and-just-plain-wrong-video#comment-72877318


Do you suffer from chronic irritation at the sight of a misused apostrophe? Do you tense up when someone begins a sentence with 'and' or 'but'? Are you unable to stop your entire body twitching when someone writes defiantly instead of definitely, or pacifically instead of specifically? Then it sounds like you have a textbook case of prescriptivism - a linguistic syndrome, almost an epidemic. Prescriptivism is the name given to the belief that language shouldn't change and should only be used as originally intended. Prescriptivists hold the view that any non-standard uses of the English language are simply incorrect and quite frankly disgusting. If this all sounds familiar to you then don't be offended! You'll find fellow sufferers in the comment section of Guardian articles and deep in the abyss of Reddit. But where did the outbreak start? Language change and standardisation have been hot topics for linguists for centuries and evolution in technology, war and fashion have fuelled the discussion but the debate is far from settled.

Time for a brief run through history to gather a sense of the argument and where we stand: 1476, Caxton's printing press is released and the ignition to the language change argument is set ablaze. Previous spellings for words are simply cast out due to there either being a technical issue with printing certain spellings (hence the use of the long S in many shakespearian texts) or publishers take responsibility into their own hands and choose spellings which they rank as being most popular. This is followed by an onslaught of dictionaries and language guides from almost half the English speaking population as they each felt their dialect was superior and most efficient. And thus the prescriptivist attitude was born. People began to order Englishes into a hierarchy of most to least desirable to rid of certain traits and although today our language is fairly standard there are some areas of grammar causing dispute.

Prescriptivist attitudes are no mystery to linguists either. Jean Aitchison, a Professor of Language and Communication at the University of Oxford, developed a few theories to attempt to explain the views of prescriptivism and why we aren't all just accepting of language change and its inevitability. 
1) Damp Spoon Syndrome - 'wrong or bad English' is a result of laziness and, like those who leave a damp spoon to soak in the sugar bowl, it sticks and people cannot be bothered to correct themselves. 
2) Infectious Disease - linguistic diseases are spread between people with no control or preventative medicine. People catch 'poor language' and spread it amongst their peers with no say in the matter.
3) Crumbling Castle - our language was once a beautiful archaic castle sat upon a hill and should be frozen this way in time forever and preserved but language has never been at a pinnacle - so when would we save it?
But Aitchison however is a representative of the opposing team - the descriptivists.

Descriptivism is the antithesis of prescriptivism as the argument supports language change and accepts that it is necessary and useful. Descriptivists never judge language as 'incorrect' or 'mistake-ridden' but instead they comment on how 'non-standard' it is. The descriptivists are the optimists in the argument as they look back in history to appreciate how far we have come linguistically and theorise about the potential English has to expand even further. Well-known linguist David Crystal is quotes as saying ''the only languages that do not change are the dead ones'' and in my eyes this summarises the debate perfectly. If language was a person we would expect them to learn through experience and grow so why stop this process?

So the next time you catch your nose running at the sight of the latest internet coined slang term, consider the creativity that goes into language and don't take someone's voice away.