A Never-Ending Debate

       Robert Lane Greene and Bryan A. Garner provide a very interesting debate about how language is used and how it should be used. Most of the people take the usage of language for granted and do not really realize why they make mistakes or the actual reasoning behind making the mistake. Here is where the “descriptivists” and the “prescriptivists” differ. Although both of them acknowledge that their goal is the good of the language and its appropriate use, the methods by which they plan to accomplish this task vary a great deal. Greene exemplifies this by declaring, “…I would open fire by saying that you preach stodgy nonrules that most people don’t obey, and that people like you don’t understand that language must grow and change” (Greene). This is a very harsh attack on the prescriptivists, since they actually preach rules than many people follow. I agree there are some exceptions that do not follow the rules of standard English, but the vast majority do. I share most of the ideas proposed by the prescriptivists because I think that there should be a hierarchy in language usage. According to the descriptivists, the people decide how language should be used and what is right or wrong. If this takes place, then language would change very often and there would not be a defined set of accepted rules by which to decide if something is right or wrong. The rules of standard English would become very subjective.

       Both of the writers use logos as their main rhetoric mode. They appeal to logic and present their argument based on very well-known writers' ideas. Their points seem to be said as a sequence of arguments which lead to their conclusions either as descriptivists or prescriptivists. I would say that it is almost the same debate that has occurred between conservatives and liberals. The conservatives want to have a defined structure that is based on the traditional styles. On the other hand, the liberals want a structure that changes and evolves as time goes by and as society progresses. Although the descriptivists have a good point in stating that language must evolve along with the people that use it, it is more important that those changes take place gradually and without any sudden shift in the basics. If this does not happen, even more dialects than the existing ones will form and each time they will be more different from the original language. I agree with both of the writers in the sense that there should not be a big debate over very specific wording concerns. Garner depicts this when he says. “I’m happy to live in disagreement with you on that tiny point – given that we agreed on so much else” (Garner). He is implicitly saying that prescriptivists have many of the qualities of descriptivists and vice versa. However, in the very end, Garner recognizes the fact that the debate will never end that “the fighting must stop” (Garner). This is a never-ending debate in which there will be no defined winner, but I am hopeful that language will still be ruled by a clear set of traditional rules and that will only change when it is completely necessary and will do so in a slow and gradual manner.

Prescriptive: Sanctioned or authorized by long-standing custom or usage.

Descriptive: Of or relating to the study or the description of a language or a specific stage of a language, with emphasis on constructing a grammar without regard to historical development, comparison with other languages, or advocated norms for correct or proper usage.

Permissivism: Lenience toward or indulgence of a wide variety of social behavior.

Nonrule: A rule that states that a person cannot be held liable for a loss caused by his or her behavior if the loss would have occurred regardless.