Follow up on class today

Hi All,

Just a follow-up on the class today because I felt like we didn't have time to really get at the central question of what the ideal 'line' is between prescriptivism and descriptivism. We all seemed to agree that there is some line, some consideration that needs to be had to keep continuity in language, but it wasn't clear what everyone thought that line should be.

Nunberg wrote: "The long run will surely prove the linguists right: English will survive whatever "abuses" its current critics complain of. And by that I mean not just that people will go on using English and its descendants in their daily commerce but that they will continue to make art with it as well. Yet it is hard to take comfort in the scholars' sanguine detachment. We all know what Keynes said about the long run, and in the meantime does it really matter not at all how we choose to speak and write?"

In my opinion, Nunberg is creating a false contradiction here, posing only two options available: either bow to prescriptivist claims of abuses of language, or accept that the English language will become completely chaotic. Neither of these are realistic. But, what are elements of a language that need to be enforced for lack of a better term? Where do you draw the line?

Tiffany