A confession to make....

[conuly]

Although I do dislike prescriptivism, the reality is that my normal dialect is actually very close to Standard American English. I even use the subjunctive, and the word whom. It's tragic :(

When I say things like "youse guys" or "djusk' a" or the random Latin, I'm doing that consciously because I want a more interesting idiolect.

I'm sorry for misleading people.

*sniffles*

Well, that's done. Now we can forget it ever happened, okay?

Oh, and something else - just because prescriptivism is evil does NOT mean that I have given up the right to thwomp you all seriously for saying something nonstandard (if I think that's what you're trying to do). If you don't want to be corrected, you should say so, because I hate to see something that's very nearly standard, but not quite. So if you're typing standard english, standard english, standard english, between him and I, standard english - expect me to yell and change the I to a me. And explain why. Ad nauseam.

Thank you.

Again, let's just forget this ever happened.

*runs off*

Comments

[cumaeansibyl.livejournal.com]

I'm actually a prescriptivist -- oh, am I ever -- but I like using colloquialisms and pieces of dialect and words from other languages in my speech and my casual writing. Like ladyshrew said, that stuff has more power if you normally speak or write SAE. I ain't one of them people what normally talk all wrong, so people notice it when I do.

I'm only really prescriptivist when it comes to formal writing. I don't care how people talk, and I'll ignore grammar violations in casual writing unless they're truly awful and grating, but if someone hands me a paper or an op-ed article to edit I am going to kill that fucker dead. In such cases, I'm concerned with the current academic standard, not the evolution of English or valuing other modes of speech or any of that language-is-free-like-a-butterfly stuff, because your average prof wants to see you write like a serious academic-type person.