a joke about two pere ubuists

[MalignD at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/9/03 2:44:44 AM, abdieloabdiel at yahoo.com writes:


> Presumptions are not arguments. That's true. However,
> your comments about prescriptive grammar have also
> included statements about how language works.
> 
> Here are some examples:
> 
> It is certainly true that the plastic nature of
> language outruns attempts finally to prescribe its
> use.
> 
> Nevertheless, the attempt to prescribe--to
> approximate and enforce a standard--has far greater
> support in reason than a merely political one.  At the
> most basic level, precision and complexity in thought
> requires precision in language if it is to be
> communicated as intended.  This basic truth is
> needlessly complicated, if not made impossible, if
> rules are flaunted as arbitrary and political.
> 
> It's not a matter of politics
> (although politics has certainly entered the matter),
> but one of agreed-upon standards for the sake of
> advancing and intelligibly exchanging thought.
> 

Little if any of the above addresses how language works.   I'm speaking above 
of the practical and social implications of rules of prescriptive grammar.   

You suggested (another presumption) that language is far more complex than I 
think.   Did I not think language complex I would likely be far less 
insistent about the need for rules.   Nothing in what I've said suggests that 
one cannot ideate complex thoughts without an agreed-upon prescriptive 
grammar; rather, that those thoughts cannot be broadly communicated   with 
precision without such a grammar.   Communication is reduced in such a case 
to guesswork and approximation.

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