• Philosophosphorous [comrade/them, null/void]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    4 months ago

    descriptivism is linguistic tailism, humans have the ability and responsibility to shape their shared language for the benefit of all instead of letting anything and everything happen with no consequence as if entropy and random chance and any kind of capitalist or fascist modifications of language are holy and beyond reproach. as a niche leftist community there is not much we can do for the moment but analyze, however a strong centrally organized revolutionary communist party of some kind should absolutely ‘prescribe’ how language is used to shape society for the better.

    • Lurker123 [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      4 months ago

      I don’t think descriptivist is really operating on a normative level. It is not taking the position people/society ought not try to shape the language. It is simply recognizing the reality that the meaning of a word in language is (*insert specific branch here - but often it is something like “common usage”).