The Grumpy Grammarian

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Prescriptivism Versus Descriptivism

It has become customary to speak of grammarians as prescriptivists or descriptivists.  According to these labels, the prescriptivists decide what is "proper" grammar on the basis of prescribed rules, with the implication that rules are imposed upon the language and not determined by practice.  The descriptivists determine "proper" grammar on the basis of what users of the language actually do with it, with the implication that prescribed rules are meaningless if a large number of users do not follow them.

Like virtually all broad labels (e.g., "liberal" and "conservative"), these terms are misleading simplifications.  When applied to individuals and their approaches to grammar, the terms become stereotypes, just as political labels do.  In reality, hardly anyone who discusses or teaches grammar is purely prescriptive or descriptive.  Most people who are classified as prescriptive grammarians do not deny that language evolves and changes; they don't insist that all rules are locked in cement and must never be bent or modified.  Similarly, few people who are classified as descriptive grammarians discard all (or even most) rules; they don't insist that any rule is useless just because large numbers of people break it or are unaware of it.

However, to hear people talking about "prescriptivism" and "descriptivism," one might think that the only choices are two stereoptypical extremes.  This is like saying, with respect to politics, that someone who is classified as a "liberal" cannot entertain any "conservative" views or that someone who is classified as a "conservative" cannot subscribe to any "liberal" opinions.  As with politics, most individuals' views on language, grammar, and usage fall at various points on a spectrum, depending on the issue at hand, and are not fixed at either stereotypical extreme.

As implied in our previous article on the "democratizing" of grammar, an individual who leans toward the descriptivist end of the spectrum would not insist on abolishing all rules of subject-verb agreement, even if large numbers of people started to say "I are" and "We is."  Likewise, an individual who leans toward the prescriptivist extreme would most likely concede that a widely used idiom such as "It's me" should be considered acceptable, at least in informal usage, even though it directly violates the rule for the predicate nominative.

We would have far less contention and more common sense about what is "proper," respecting usage and grammar if we all accepted the reality that language is – and must be – dynamic and flexible.  This does not mean that we can casually discard any traditional rule that we disagree with or find inconvenient.  It does mean, however, that those near the "prescriptivist" extreme on the spectrum must abandon the "rules for the sake of rules" position that they tend to take.

Although an "anything goes" philosophy is a recipe for linguistic anarchy, utter rigidity and insistence on rules for their own sake deprives language of one of its most important attributes – the capacity to grow and to change.  So-called prescriptivists who defy this reality by adamantly trying to enforce outmoded conventions will, in fact, accomplish the opposite of what they intend to do.  They invite rebellion against all grammatical traditions by blindly clinging to those that do not and should not apply anymore.  Insisting on a speed limit that is suitable for the horse-and-buggy age means that everyone will speed (but this doesn't mean that we should not have speed limits at all).

This is a point that we who teach grammar should not take lightly.  Nowadays, we confront strong feelings that correct grammar is relatively unimportant and that insistence upon traditional rules represents a kind of elitism – "academic snobbery" – that is completely out of touch with what "ordinary" people do.  Insisting on rules for the sake of rules reinforces these feelings.  If the only justification we have for a rule is that "it's a rule," we're going to get about as much cooperation from our students as traffic cops get from drivers.  They will follow the rules only when they know we're watching.  The rest of the time, they will do whatever they want or whatever they perceive everyone else as doing.

If we have acquired the "prescriptivist" label (as I have), we need to emphasize that we are not arbitrarily prescribing rules for their own sake.  We should refer to ourselves as traditional grammarians, not as prescriptive grammarians.  We are trying to preserve the conventions of traditional grammar – practices that are necessary for language to be efficent and effective.  We must go even further and prove that there's logic behind these conventions – logic that has something to do with meaning and sense.  For example, something as seemingly esoteric as the rule for possessive before a gerund is supported by logic.  We say, "We were surprised by his winning the scholarship" rather than "We were surprised by him winning the scholarship" because it was "his winning" (not him) that surprised us.  The grammatical rule relates to sense; it does not exist for its own sake.

On the other hand, those of us who defend traditional grammar have a commitment.  We should speak out against the individuals who want to toss aside grammatical conventions on the grounds that "nobody says that anymore."  Even if vast numbers of grammatically challenged people are saying "Him and me" are going, that's no reason to suspend the conventions for the case of personal pronouns.  The proliferation of such utterances does not represent a change in the language; it represents a rising tide of ignorance about how the language works – that is, ignorance of grammar.  Widespread ignorance of grammar and usage does not signify an evolutionary change in the language; it signifies only . . . well . . . widespread ignorance.

Unfortunately, many people who consider themselves to be grammarians cannot defend their positions on particular points of grammar logically.  This observation applies to both the so-called prescriptivists and the so-called descriptivists.  When pushed to defend a "rule," prescriptivists often defend it by saying, "It's a rule."  When pushed to defend the breaking of a "rule," descriptivists often fall back on the argument that "Nobody does that anymore" (although "nobody" means, of course, "hardly anybody I associate with").  These defenses are only slightly better than "Because I say so" or "Because I don't like it."

Style may be a matter of personal choice; correct usage and grammar are not.  Yes, one may choose to follow traditions or not to follow them, but in any social context (and language does exist in a social context) there are serious consequences for ignoring traditions.  One reason is that, though traditions change and evolve over time, they are essential to the social contract.  Our traditions regarding marriage, for example, are significantly different than they were a century ago, yet certain conventions have survived since the beginning of civilization, despite sometimes powerful movements to uproot them.  They have survived less for any moral reason but because they work.

We are all, to some degree, traditional respecting grammar and usage.  We don't, for example, arrange words in random order because it wouldn't make sense to do so.  Therefore, we are all, to some degreee prescriptivist, following prescribed conventions of word order.  We do the same regarding more subtle conventions, in everything from word forms to punctuation.  We maintain these conventions not because some rule book says we must but because they work.