Word Debate

As long as we're brabbling, please allow me to initiate a conversation here on Hatandcoat. If you've ever been in a grammar argument, or if you've ever insisted that some people don't know how to speak their own language, you are already part of the debate. So don't roll your eyes at this post, Dear Reader, for it may well give you ammunition for your next grammar/definition showdown.

On Christmas Eve, a friend of mine brought up the American Heritage Dictionary's "usage problem" with the way people now use the word "fortuitous." In a nutshell, the word only originally meant "happening by random chance or accident." Since the 1920s, though, people have confused it with "fortunate" and "felicitous" and thus exclusively used it to mean "lucky, a good accident." If you said the following sentence, hardly anyone would think it's wrong:

In a fortuitous turn of events, I found a $100 bill in my pocket.

But if you were to say the following, people would give you the stinkeye:

In a fortuitous turn of events, I stepped in dog feces.

If you insisted that that was an accurate usage of the word, they would probably tell you that "fortuitous" means "lucky."*

I thanked my friend for the tidbit. I love these little problem words. And I love knowing the history of the word and the evolution of its meaning. But I didn't bother to get into the boring argument that I usually get into with these kinds of word problems. That argument is PRESCRIPTIVISM VS DESCRIPTIVISM.

Prescriptivists, in the linguistic domain, are those who believe that there are rules for a language. That there is an ideal language that we follow grammar rules to match as closely as we can. That there is a wrong way to speak and a right way to speak.

Descriptivists are those who believe that language is in flux, that there are no rules as long as the speaker and listener both understand what is going on, and that there's no right and wrong, there's only communication and miscommunication.

The problem with prescriptivists is that the grammar rules they learned in school were just the product of one or two prescriptivists who wrote books in the 18th or 19th century. The educational system picked those books and based lessons on them. Split infinitives, prepositions at the ends of sentences, etc., have established histories in English as a language, and they do not muddle understanding, yet armchair prescriptivists cling to these notions like they are holy scripture.

The problem with descriptivists is that, although language is in flux, there is a great deal of value in learning the rules that most people, especially upper-class people, agree on. If I write a cover letter, I'm not going to write it however I like. The genre of a cover letter dictates that I follow certain rules so I don't sound like an idiot. Furthermore, if I spoke however I pleased, I might not be understood by most people, so it might be expedient to follow the rules.

I lie somewhere in-between. I dislike the dogmatic approach many (including Hatandcoat) have towards language, grammar, and definitions. I love that words can change meaning, via ignorance or otherwise. It means that our language is alive. And many so-called grammar rules are unnecessary and misleading.

But on the other hand, I recognize the need for some rules (especially in certain language genres), and I like the original meanings of words as well as I like the new ones. For me, it's a question of "How many rules are enough," not "Which is right, rules or no rules".

Hatandcoat, care to defend your prescriptivist ways?

*If they did that, they would be acting prescriptivist about their own misinterpretation! It's prescriptivist vs. prescriptivist!