Talk:Linguistic prescription/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Paragraph defending prescriptivism with questionable statements and no sources

This:

A further problem is the difficulty of specifying legitimate criteria. Although prescribing authorities almost invariably have clear ideas about why they make a particular choice, and the choices are therefore seldom entirely arbitrary, they often appear arbitrary to others who do not understand or are not sympathetic to the goals of the authorities. Judgments that seek to resolve ambiguity or increase the ability of the language to make subtle distinctions are easier to defend. Judgments based on the subjective associations of a word are more problematic.

What is the source for this statement? -- "prescribing authorities almost invariably have clear ideas about why they make a particular choice".

This is problematic: "the choices are therefore seldom entirely arbitrary". Anyone can give reasons for their choices but this does not mean that they do not reflect arbitrary judgements.

"sympathetic to the goals of the authorities". This unquestioningly accepts the existence of "authorities" (their nature and credentials are not explained) to decide what people should and should not write.

"Judgments that seek to resolve ambiguity or increase the ability of the language to make subtle distinctions are easier to defend". This is talking in a vacuum, as is much of the paragraph. There is no indication what kinds of judgements are being discussed. (Indeed, "subtle distinctions" may be easier to "defend" but they are very hard to implement.)

"Judgments based on the subjective associations of a word are more problematic" -- Again, this is a statement in a vacuum.

The entire paragraph seems to be arguing, without any kind of examples or background, that people who protest about prescriptive choices just don't "understand" what these "authorities" are trying to do. On the contrary, I suggest that it is quite possible that some of the people who dismiss the "seldom entirely arbitrary" pronouncements of the "authorities" may in fact have a better understanding of language than the "authorities".

I suggest removing the entire paragraph as it does not seem to be saying anything useful or concrete, other than to vaguely defend "authorities" who make choices that are "seldom entirely arbitrary".

59.153.112.126 (talk) 01:11, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

"sympathetic to the goals of the authorities". This unquestioningly accepts the existence of "authorities" (their nature and credentials are not explained) to decide what people should and should not write. I think this is an overstatement. I'd say that the wording accepts that a lot of people believe that there are such authorities (and that, for English, they include Strunk, White, Fowler, etc), even if you and I would dispute that any such authorities exist. Note that the article has said at an earlier point: Prescription presupposes authorities whose judgments may come to be followed by many other speakers and writers. For English, these authorities tend to be books. Perhaps the first instance of "authorities" should be in scare quotes or this could be rephrased for the better, but anyway the article has already introduced the notion of (perceived) authorities. Now, if we look into (say) Fowler's book, we see that he does often go through the motions of appealing to clarity, concision, etc -- even though he seems inconsistent, capricious, out of touch with good writing of his time (let alone ours), and yes, often just arbitrary. ¶ I suggest that it is quite possible that some of the people who dismiss the "seldom entirely arbitrary" pronouncements of the "authorities" may in fact have a better understanding of language than the "authorities". Well yes of course! -- Hoary (talk) 08:06, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

This does not address my proposal, that the paragraph should be deleted or significantly rewritten. It cites no sources and appears to be little more than a vague defence of "authorities" who make choices that are "seldom entirely arbitrary" against people who "do not understand or are not sympathetic to the goals of the authorities". I would argue that this is POV (defending the "authorities" while misrepresenting the motives of many people who do not agree with them), unclear (no examples given, making it difficult to relate to anything), and makes unwarranted and unsupported statements ("almost invariably have clear ideas about why they make a particular choice", "choices are therefore seldom entirely arbitrary"). It could be deleted with little impact on the article.

59.153.112.126 (talk) 09:12, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I would be against deleting, as this seem to me to be important, but you are welcome to discuss a rewrite. I think you are mistaken in thinking that the paragraph defends prescription. On the contrary, I find the language of this paragraph very balanced. Prescribing "authorities" (as the word is explained elsewhere in the article) are not necessarily idiots, and the article has a duty to try to understand what they are trying to do. This article should not defend them, but it should not condemn them either - we are about neutrality here. So we have to show both their point of view and that of their critics. And I find both things in this paragraph.

We have in the past had people appear here who want to change the article so it is an unmitigated castigation of all prescription. I'm not suggesting you want that, just pointing out that we have to defend against that trend. A Wikipedia article must show a controversy equally from both sides. --Doric Loon (talk) 11:29, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm mostly in agreement with Doric Loon. Even people like Nevile Gwynne and Simon Heffer tend to appeal to (what they regard as) principles. The principles may be highly dubious (often depending on taste, which in turn is often arbitrary); but these writers believe that their condemnations and recommendations aren't arbitrary, and I imagine that most of their readers agree with them. That said, I do concede that there's something not quite satisfactory about "authorities" (even when in scare quotes). For example, for much of his book A Sense of Style, Steven Pinker is a prescriptivist (in a mild and avuncular way); yet I suspect that many of the appreciative readers of this book think of him not as an "authority" but rather just as somebody who writes well and who has given an unusual amount of thought to questions of what contributes to good writing and what detracts from it. ¶ Feel free to improve the paragraph, and/or to slap "{{Citation needed|date=April 2018}}" to the end of it. -- Hoary (talk) 13:28, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I would concur with all of that. Perhaps more to the point (i.e., to better address the OP), it is highly unlikely that any "claim" made in this paragraph (which is really a summary of the general situation, not a string of discrete or controversial claims) cannot be sourced. I would, though, actually put "authority" in quotes, or rewrite ("style guide author", etc.).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:12, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Chicago

We're told (after markup-stripping):

Other guides, such as The Chicago Manual of Style, are designed to impose a single style and thus remain primarily prescriptive (as of 2017)

I'm a bit out of date with this book; but as of a couple of editions back it was indeed prescriptive, yet very often in an advisory sort of way. It did not attempt to impose a single style. And anyway its subject-matter was linguistic only very peripherally if at all.

(By contrast, the MLA style guides did boss their readers around.)

Now, if the article is talking about the section within Chicago by Garner, that's rather a different matter. What he writes is about language. -- Hoary (talk) 01:07, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't agree with this assessment. CMoS is intensely prescriptive, and frequently reality-denying about actual usage. It needs to be remembered that the main raison d'etre of the work is serving as the style manual of Chicago University Press publications, and some bones show under the skin as result of this, if you look for them. One example among many is a "pissing match" between this publisher and other academic publishers, in which CMoS actively criticizes and discourages the habit of philosophy and textual criticism [as published by other journal publishers, since UofC Press won't permit it in theirs!] of using logical quotation for precision. Another tell-tale is that when Scientific Style and Format switched publishers to UofC Press, it was massively rewritten to conform to CMoS at every point where UofC Press could get away with it, and even changed to directly defer to CMoS by name on any point not explicitly addressed by SSaF. This is basically a petty attempt at hegemonizing style (not unrelated to marrying CMoS and Garner's style into a "Chicago academic bloc", simultaneously opposed to British academic style, from which SSaF was basically usurped, opposed to American journalistic style as mainly represented by APA Stylebook, and especially opposed to other American publishers of academic style guides). There's a non-trivial amount of money at stake in this stuff, which also has much to do with the unreasonable and real-linguistics-defying nationalism inherent in much of the material; nationalistic sentimentality boosts sales of particular style guides.

I don't want this to sound like an anti-CMoS rant; it's my favorite style guide, but I remain cognizant that it's a work with a tiny editorial board that barely changes even over the course of many years, and which is fiercely resistant to defiance of their little echo chamber on any given style matter. As with all style guides, CMoS is best used in concert with a collection of other major style guides, rather than turned to as the be-all and end-all of any style question (especially since it also contains outright and objective factual errors – even after three-editions-worth of time to correct them, and multiple people reporting the errors, myself included – in addition to various subjective prescriptivism issues). It's an important work, but it is not the only provider of style answers nor a perfect one. That said, it beats the pants off the sorely confused most recent versions (Waddingham and Butterfield, eds.) of both New Hart's Rules and Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English (collectively also published as New Oxford Style Manual). I won't go into details here; my reviews of them on Amazon have those flaws covered. If you want British style guides that actually make sense, keep (or get) copies of the prior versions by Ritter and Burchfield (respectively); they post-date 2000, and have actually had more influence to date on what's in print in the British academic press.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:44, 22 April 2020 (UTC)