2015 Prediction

[Anonymous No.5955891]

I'm calling it right here, so that you guys will know I was right when it happens.

The ongoing social justice pooping contest on twitter and tumblr will, in 2015, adopt the stance that prescriptivism is privileged and racist. The next time you say that words have definitions for a reason, the retort may very well be "you only say that because the cis white institutions that write the dictionary only give the education blah blah blah etc."

Thoughts?
pic unrelated

[Anonymous No.5955899]

I'm glad you've got your priorities straight. Twitter SJWism is definitely where our thoughts should be

[Anonymous No.5955933]

>>5955899
>OP describes what he thinks is a likely (and probably is) anti-intellectual movement, and mentions what sort of person will start it

"they're all you think about"

How is this level of reading comprehension even possible

[Anonymous No.5955953]

>>5955899
Nice try Fagulon 5, but that's not the point at all.

[Anonymous No.5955973]

>>5955891
This isn't new at all. Even on here you've had linguistics majors argue for the 'validity' of ebonics and such for years.

[Anonymous No.5955981]

>>5955933

That's not what I said or implied

[Anonymous No.5955982]

>>5955973
Yes, but to the extent of calling standardization racist? I didn't think anyone was quite that bad.

[Anonymous No.5955995]

>>5955982
Uniformity destroys language. Assimilating a foreign language destroys cultural meaning, so does assimilating a dialect, and so forth until the level of individual words.

[Anonymous No.5956023]

>>5955995
That's an incredible feat of mental gymnastics. Preventing words from losing their current definition, and preventing grammar from becoming unintelligible to past written works, is related to developing NewSpeak in the same way that goats are related to sharks.

[Anonymous No.5956072]

>>5956023
Prescriptivism doesn't preserve meaning, it fossilizes one interpretation and ignores all others. I don't particularly relate to your fear of grammatical changes, if we can understand foreign languages with entirely different grammatical structures, surely we can record how language has changed over a couple of decades. Prescribed language necessarily favors a certain group of speakers, and tends to align along institutional lines of privilege. It insists that variety in language either doesn't exist, or contains no meaning, which depersonalizes non-privileged speakers. There is literally no downside to accepting new interpretations.

[Anonymous No.5956123]

>>5956072
>tends to align along institutional lines of privilege

kek. The group of speakers that prescribed language favors is... the learnt. That's it. Even though you're going to say that necessarily means the upper-class whites, Since when do you have to be white to read a fucking book? You're living in a fantasy land where every part of society is riddled with cloak-and-dagger racial politics.

And why does it matter? What possible reason could there be to descriptivize English because of the speech habits of "underprivileged" groups of people? What difference does it make that English was standardized by whites, like the English? Obviously, true diversity comes from different skin colors.

The downside of accepting new interpretations is the same as it is everywhere: it shits up the place. Random opinions are uneducated and based on feeling and agendas, which is to say, they don't matter. Like it or not, your ideas will never, ever be taken seriously outside the incestuous environment of pseudo-intellectualism that currently dominates modern leftist academia.

[Anonymous No.5956135]

>>5956072

How do people like this grow up into modern society? I accept that my grammar is often bad, and I strive to improve. Don't be a prick.

pic very related

[Anonymous No.5956150]

>>5956123
What the fuck are you babbling about? You're not even attempting to talk about language. You're obviously complaining about people, not words. Go back to /pol/. Oh wait, you can't, because even the shithole of the internet kicked you out.

>>5956135
Identify my strawman. Because this guy very eagerly seems to agree with everything I've ascribed to him.

[Anonymous No.5956176]

>>5956150
>being this butthurt

Just because you don't like what I'm saying doesn't make it babble. You're saying that highly standardized English in intrinsically favorable to privileged groups. Which is to say you are talking about people. As a rebuttal, I am calling you out on talking out of your ass, describing what makes you wrong, and then making fun of you. Which is admittedly low-hanging fruit.

Is that easy enough for you to understand without strawmanning me in a rebuttal as someone who uses /pol/ (which I don't), as if it were relevant?

[Anonymous No.5956194]

>>5956150

wow way to not let him get to you, betalord

[Anonymous No.5956199]

>>5956135
I've seen more of these than I've seen actual comics that typify what these try to expose.

[Anonymous No.5956215]

>>5956194
I'm mad cause I like words, and he won't talk about them.

>>5956176
> highly standardized English in intrinsically favorable to privileged groups
It is. The state of a person's language is highly dependent on their position within society. But that's not center of my argument, even though you'd like it to be. I'm saying that changes to language should occur anywhere that a meaningful shift in the way it is used occurs, not just within educated spheres. You even make the argument that educated spheres are limited, and their vocabulary isn't appropriate for most people.

Prescribed language only works in contained systems. In a legal environment, on a job site, in a kitchen, words all need to have prescribed meanings. But in the larger picture, words are constantly changing, and attempting to cling to prescribed meaning only decreases the ability to communicate.

[Anonymous No.5956368]

>>5956215
>The state of a person's language is highly dependent on their position within society.
The state of a person's language is wholly dependent on their willingness to better themselves.

You have this view of language that's just wholly and absolutely incorrect. Descriptivists have for ages and ages treasured the idea that incorrect usage of language, when prevalent, becomes correct because there's no such thing as a wrong way to say anything and I should feel free to express myself and I'm mommy's special little man.

Life is a contained system. So is language. Prescribed meanings are bad, but apparently they're admittedly needed in the contexts you say they are. How about in a garage? Obviously. A trade show? Well, of course. A manual? Wouldn't be any use otherwise. How about in a conversation about philosophy? Or a conversation about food? Or any conversation? How about in life?

Clinging to prescribed meaning does not decrease your ability to communicate, it creates a dependable structure that you can rely on, learn from, and grow on. Structure isn't oppressive. It lets you be truly free. That's the problem with your sort. You act like you want to help people build houses, but you do so by liberating them from the oppressive and monolithic institution of building codes. I'm not saying language should stay this way forever, quite the opposite. I'm saying that it should grow in the same orderly fashion that it has under the administration of such things as the Oxford English Dictionary, adopting richness and diversity as it becomes continually more refined, like a cathedral that is slowly decorated over centuries. My idea for a future of English is not one that has decided to include word-slurring and dialectic slang as English, but rather one in which people leave behind the superficialities of lazy thinking for truly effective communication. Before you accuse me of mocking ebonics, I say this as someone who grew up not only uneducated, but not wealthy, and not white. I'll leave you with the idea of an English speaker in the future who will not only be able to speak to any other fellow English speaker like an old friend, but will be able to read the word of his fellow man from a thousand years prior with immediate clarity, familiarity, and comprehension that no translation would ever offer. Every word ringing in his heart, every idea, every nuance preserved.

I have to go take a shit and then work for a living, so if you plan on responding to this, it won't be for my benefit.

[Anonymous No.5956390]

>>5955891
Words having definitions for a reason is not prescriptivism.

[Anonymous No.5956427]

>>5956368
>The state of a person's language is wholly dependent on their willingness to better themselves.

In 2015 this is just plain true. With the internet anyone can become as educated as anyone else. If someone isn't able to speak and write like an intelligent, educated person then he simply doesn't have the desire or ability to do so.