Prescriptivism

Ojas Patil suggested long ago that I write a post about causes of language change. I had forgotten it until E, who’s already given me post fodder once via a comment on a Linguistrix post, asked me a follow-up question on my reply to his comment-question. It was heartening to see that E appeared reasonably convinced by my answers to his first question, and his question is quite interesting— So how does language or grammar evolve (Because it certainly _does_ evolve)?

Someone called E has posted a question in the comments section of my last post—The VanDamme Academy, and why grammar is not about clarity—Part 2. I was going to answer it there itself, but I realized this had enough material to be a post, so here it goes. First, his question: So, what, according to you, is ‘unconditionally ungrammatical’ about _They is walking_? If it conveys all the information the speaker intends to convey, unambiguously, the only thing wrong with it is the fact that it does not follow convention (the convention of conjugating a verb a certain way with certain subjects)

[This is Part 2 of the post title. If you haven’t read the first part, please read it here, though this post can be read in isolation too] An important distinction that people often miss out on is the difference between _grammar_ and _style_—the difference between writing _correctly_ and writing well. And this distinction is very important because it’s more or less easy for most native speakers with some amount of training in the standard dialect (and knowledge of things like right spellings) to write correctly.

Miheer Desai suggested that I check out the Lisa VanDamme channel on YouTube for her views on parenting and teaching. I found the VanDamme Academy fairly interesting, and Ms VanDamme seems to be a very passionate person. Her video response to the Chinese Moms article was also thought-provoking, and it’s heartening to see that someone is putting an effort into improving pedagogy and understanding the ways in which we can educate kids in today’s world.

Sindhu, a lawyer friend, sent me this on chat: You should do a post on who v. whom. VERY confusing, I say! … to which I replied that she didn’t need to worry about it and as long as she trusted her instinct, it was just fine, but she said: Yes, but it is important to know the difference. At our firm, we are very particular about pristine English in mails to clients.

I am surprised I didn’t come across this much earlier. Jonathan Swift, a very renowned essayist, poet, satirist, popularly known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, wrote: If you want to read it yourself, you can do so here, but I would advise against it. There isn’t much to be gained, and he’s written too much. Jonathan Swift was an intelligent man, and a pretty good writer, so read up his other stuff if you want.

[This article has undergone a few edits after being published. I see that the whole discussion is revolving around issues peripheral to the theme of the post. In this post, I am denouncing the concept of purity being attached to Sanskritized Hindi, so I have removed bits I care less about and which are not directly relevant to the issue.] 14th September is celebrated in India as Hindi Divas (हिंदी दिवस).

[This is the continuation of a series of articles on Languages and Linguistics that I am writing for a magazine for school kids, EducationEdge, that a friend of mine has started recently. These articles are targeted at students of classes VIII to XII. I will keep posting those articles on Linguistrix once they are published. The first article can be found here.] In the previous article, I introduced you to Linguistics and discussed a few examples from various fields within this discipline.