People seem to be downvoting you but you’re absolutely right. Languages are dynamic and evolve all the time. The language “rules” are merely descriptive; they explain how most people use the language, and if you want to make sure everyone can understand you it’s best to follow them.
Even then there’s some wiggle-room. Take the gif/jif pronunciation debate, it was coined as “jif” but the majority of people switched to “gif”. So (depending on the dictionary you own) it will often either list just “gif” as correct, or list both as equally valid pronunciations (which given the sizeable minority for “jif” seems like the correct approach imo). All the gift/giraffe/creator-says-x is just fluff and not actually all that relevant.
Rules definitely help keep a language more consistent! They’re not without use. It also helps to teach language to children and makes established parts of a language stay more consisteny over time. However, pretending there’s a rhyme or reason behind all of them is hard to justify, as well as claiming “x is correct because of rule y” if a majority decides z is correct instead.
It’s a bit hard to take in the present era, when the old rules were maintained by highly literate people like copy editors, and the new rules are made by anyone with a smartphone. I didn’t agree with all the traditional rules, but they have an elegance and consistency that Internet discourse usually lacks.
“Correct” is in languages how the general population uses it.
People seem to be downvoting you but you’re absolutely right. Languages are dynamic and evolve all the time. The language “rules” are merely descriptive; they explain how most people use the language, and if you want to make sure everyone can understand you it’s best to follow them.
Even then there’s some wiggle-room. Take the gif/jif pronunciation debate, it was coined as “jif” but the majority of people switched to “gif”. So (depending on the dictionary you own) it will often either list just “gif” as correct, or list both as equally valid pronunciations (which given the sizeable minority for “jif” seems like the correct approach imo). All the gift/giraffe/creator-says-x is just fluff and not actually all that relevant.
IMHO absolute descriptivism and absolute prescriptivism are both bullshit. Language evolves, but that doesn’t mean there should be no rules.
Rules definitely help keep a language more consistent! They’re not without use. It also helps to teach language to children and makes established parts of a language stay more consisteny over time. However, pretending there’s a rhyme or reason behind all of them is hard to justify, as well as claiming “x is correct because of rule y” if a majority decides z is correct instead.
It’s a bit hard to take in the present era, when the old rules were maintained by highly literate people like copy editors, and the new rules are made by anyone with a smartphone. I didn’t agree with all the traditional rules, but they have an elegance and consistency that Internet discourse usually lacks.
Thank you.