Date:    Tue, 21 Apr 1998 10:40:04 -0500
<br>From:    Thomas Creswell <creswell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CROWN.NET>
<br>Subject: Re: (In)flammable
<br>
<br>A fully and completely consistent descriptivist attude _does_ account for what
<br>Greg refers to as the "prescriptivist" decisions that humans make in planning
<br>and uttering speech. Good dictionary definitions report on the results of those
<br>"prescriptivist" decisions made by humans in their speech and writing.
<br>
<br>I think, however, that it confuses the issue to refer to such decisions as
<br>"prescriptivist."  I prefer to reserve the term _prescriptive_ to refer to
<br>injunctions by "experts," not to decisions made by speakers/writers.
<br>
<br>Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote:
<br>
<br>> At 12:49 AM 4/21/98 -0600, you wrote:
<br>> >>There are two _in-_ prefixes, one being a negator and the other referring
<br>> >>to 'enabling'.  So 'inflammable' refers to an object consisting of a
<br>> >>substance that may be 'inflamed' when subjected to a heat source above a
<br>> >>certain temperature -- though this is not the most common use of
<br>> >>'inflame'.  Discussions of the inappropriateness of the term 'inflammable'
<br>> >>are typical of dicta offered by prescriptivists who don't want to bother
<br>> >>doing homework because they already know everything that anyone could
<br>> >>possibly learn about language by consulting dictionaries etc.
<br>> >
<br>> >DMLance
<br>> >
<br>>
<br>> Isn't the elimination of the "in-" from "inflammable" actually an example of
<br>> linguistic *innovators* (not "tradition"-maintaining prescriptivists) simply
<br>> giving in to the descriptivistically observed problem of confusion between
<br>> two phonetically identical prefixes of often opposite meanings?
<br>>
<br>> But since you raise prescriptivism, a larger point to think about is that
<br>> linguistically prescriptivist activities (i.e., decisions about what is
<br>> "better" and what is "worse" usage -- decisions which are in fact
<br>> unavoidable in the production of any utterance) are part of what human
<br>> beings in fact do, with a good deal of frequency. So a fully and
<br>> consistently descriptivist attitude toward language would need to include
<br>> and account for prescriptivist activity as one component of its full
<br>> description of language.
<br>>
<br>> Gregory {Greg} Downing, at greg.downing[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nyu.edu or downingg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]is2.nyu.edu
<br>