![]() ![]() This dispute is the subject of “The Language Wars: A History of Proper English” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), by the English journalist Henry Hitchings, a convinced descriptivist. In the past half century or so, however, this situation has produced a serious quarrel, political as well as linguistic, with two combatant parties: the prescriptivists, who were bent on instructing us in how to write and speak and the descriptivists, who felt that all we could legitimately do in discussing language was to say what the current practice was. English has always been a ragbag, and that encouraged further permissiveness. English is a melding of the languages of the many different peoples who have lived in Britain it has also changed through commerce and conquest. The second group was right about the multitudes. They were pulsings of our linguistic lifeblood, proof that English was large, contained multitudes. The usages they objected to were cause not for grief but for celebration. To others, the complainers were fogies and snobs. All around them, people were talking about “parameters” and “life styles,” saying “disinterested” when they meant “uninterested,” “fulsome” when they meant “full.” To the pained listeners, it seemed that they were no longer part of this language group. ![]() For a long time, many English speakers have felt that the language was going to the dogs. ![]()
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