this post was submitted on 16 May 2025
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Exactly. Dictionaries are descriptive tools, not prescriptive.
I generally agree, though there's cases where you want to be selective with what you're describing. This Low Saxon dictionary, for example, has a policy of not listing loans and calques from Dutch, German, or English unless they've been well-established, doubly so if there's an already existing Low Saxon word which fits the bill.
The justification is that the language is in a vulnerable state with native proficiency having jumped at least a full generation so many speakers' vocabulary is lacking. E.g. my repertoire of words for plants and animals in Low Saxon is negligible, so in speech I have to improvise i.e. use a loan. I occasionally look stuff up and I don't want to find the loan I just used listed, giving it dictionary blessing would amount to aiding and abetting the decline of the language. Why the hell would anyone want to aid and abet the sidelining of wonderful words like Huulbessen, "howl broom".
That exception makes sense. Both because their prescription isn't in the dictionary itself, but rather in their choice of scope for it, and because it's trying to protect a threatened variety, instead of just creating some meaningless division (like plenty prescriptions do).
Language! High German may have an army but we have the fleet.
More seriously if you class Low Saxon as a non-standard variety of Standard German and then have a look at the family tree you'd have, for the sake of consistency, call English a German variety. Sure they're all West Germanic languages but we need taxa for the taxonomy god: Low Saxon is more closely related to the Anglo-Frisian languages than to the Allemannic/Bavarian line, which is where Standard German stems from.
"Variety" doesn't imply status as a dialect or as a language; it's neutral in this regard, that's why I used it.
More specifically, I see it as an Ingvaeonic variety; yes, like English, it's also an Ingvaeonic variety. I agree with you that "nesting" it within Standard German would be incorrect.
While this doesn't apply in this specific case, since Low Saxon is clearly sitting within its taxon, keep in mind that the taxonomy god is still Armok - it still demands blood. The blood of people furiously arguing if some variety belongs to taxon A or taxon B, when the variety shows intermediate traits.
I see this all the time when people talk about the Romance varieties, trying to lump Aragonese into either Ibero-Romance or Gallo-Romance; or Venetan into either Gallo-Italic or Italo-Dalmatian.
I believe and forgive you.
The reason why I bristled is because there's a political dimension to the classification: The reason we have that generational gap in native proficiency is because the language was actively combatted, sidelined, and bemeaned by academia, "Low Saxon is an obstacle to education". Parents were made to believe that for their kids to have success, they needed to chide the grandparents for speaking it while the kids were around. In that effort, it was quite popular to class it as a dialect which goes contrary to the experience of speakers, flies in the face of more than a millennium of literary history, status as Lingua Franca, and much more. So for me, being neutral doesn't cut it: It diminishes the hard-won spark of self-esteem that's necessary to revitalise the language.
Also it's important to distinguish proper Low Saxon from Missingsch, the contact variety to Standard German. (Contemporary) Missigsch indeed is a dialect of Standard German, you can go full-tilt on its non-Standard features and Bavarians will still understand you.
Tell that to the French
A lot of language communities have that almost superstitious belief that "if it is not in the dictionary, you shouldn't be using it". Not just the French. (inb4 I'll keep using "tabarnak" even if it's not there. Fite me!)
La langue est une anarchie, pas une tyrannie
di sa pour l´academi.
je ne parl pa frances sinon anarquistement.
I'd argue that dictionaries should be prescriptive, with systems in place for modification as language changes and semantics shift.
Case in point: the word "literally" now being its own antonym.
Literally was literally used as a figurative intensifier from basically the first moment it stopped meaning "of or pertaining to letters".
English is full of contronyms. We even have a special word for them.
No one complains about "dust" having two contradicting meanings (apply or remove a powder), or "original" meaning "traditional" or "novel".
What should the dictionary do when the people who use the language start using it in a way the dictionary says is wrong? Does the dictionary just ignore the language and insist that dusting only means to apply powder, and original only means new?
Communication is better facilitated by describing how language is used and trusting the listener and speaker to use context to convey meaning unambiguously.
I don't need the dictionary to tell me I'm not being asked to put powdered sugar on the mantle, or that someone isn't sharing their grandmother's newly created, bespoke recipe they invented for their family.
Language is largely not prescriptive, no matter how much people want it to be. Prescriptivism is like holding your hand out to stop a river, it completely misunderstands how language flows over time.
Yes, this. Nobody came along and decreed the dictionary was descriptive - which would itself be a prescriptivist view of the world - it just is.
Linguistics rejected prescriptivism because it is a failed model of reality. I think the reason so many people cling to a prescriptive model is because in school we were taught obedience above all else, which is a terrible way of educating people, but maybe it helps to maintain a subservient class of workers.
A language simply "is". If you're trying to tell people what it is, you're being descriptive; if you tell them how it should be, you're being prescriptive. Both things have their place, even if linguists (when studying a language) focus on one to the detriment of other.
The problem is that short-sighted prescriptions are so bloody common that they take the spotlight from more reasonable things like "don't use slurs, you're demeaning people" or "write in a way suitable for your target audience", etc.
Then what's the point of teaching language to children in school?
Depends on what you mean by that. I'm not a linguist, but I've heard a lot of them speak, so I hope someone more qualified will correct me where I am wrong.
At an early age language needs to be taught in it's present localized state to give a base structure for learning. With that language learning we need to teach structure of language locally and also more generally. Later in their learning, if we taught everyone in society the reality that linguists already know, that language changes and evolves over time and place, and teach language basics like how language itself works, we see better outcomes. The worst outcomes we see in language learning is when we teach only rote memorization of sounds, spelling, and rigid grammar. We can still teach that stuff, but it needs to be taught along side general language structures, language theory, and an understanding of practical realities to see better outcomes.
Whatever we do, language will always change rapidly over time. It's better to teach in a way that prepares people for the fluidity of language, than to teach people only the rigid structures that will inevitably change.
I recently had a conversation with someone 1/3 my age. Allegedly, we both spoke english. Neither of us understood a damn thing the other said. I know this is an extreme example, and not representative of most contexts, but I think it's worth looking at as an extreme example of how lack of language prescription can go horribly wrong.
No cap?
no one has successfully explained to me what that means.
On one hand, inappropriate use of language like "literally" bugs me too. On the other hand, difficulty understanding other English speakers is an attitude thing.
If you don't know what a word or a new use of a word means... you should find out.
Trying to assert that language should stay the way it was when you learned it is frankly lazy.
'Cap' means 'lie'. If someone says "No cap?", they're asking "For real?" or "Are you serious?". If someone says "You're capping", they're saying you are not telling the truth.
I appreciate you providing an actual useful definition.
Next question: how does that etymology work? Why "cap"?
Here's a bunch of words that either didn't exist at all, or didn't exist in their current form/meaning when you were growing up:
smartphone, app, emoji, meme, livestream, crowdfunding, cryptocurrency, blockchain, NFT, ransomware, selfie, vlog, podcast, cloud computing, Al, algorithmic bias, social distancing, contact tracing, microaggression, cancel culture, virtue signalling, gamification, enshitification, deepfake, influencer, cybersecurity, carbon footprint, microplastic, drone, smart home, loT, cryptocurrency, biohacking, wearable, crowdsourcing, clickbait.
But I bet you could understand someone that used most if not all of those words right? Because you learnt them, even after adulthood? You can learn and understand these new words too.
Also I find it incredibly hard to believe they couldn't understand you. Even if the young generation uses a ton of slang with each other, they interact with teachers, parents, grandparents, media such as TV and movies etc I could go on. Unless you were intentionally using very old or foreign slang heavily I find it near unthinkable they actually couldn't understand you.
Edit: I just noticed you're the same person I replied to in another comment. I wanna be clear I wasn't seeking you out or something, I barely look at user names, it was coincidence.
Eh, kinda how the dictionary needs to work. It's meant to be used to understand the language, so the dictionary can't hold strong opinions and argue against how it's used and remain useful.
I.E. Let's say English is my second language, and I read something like "OMG I would literally kill myself." And I go look up "literally" I'm a dictionary. If the very common antonym usage of it isn't listed as a second definition, I'll totally misunderstand.
So as much as we may not love that a word is flipping to mean its opposite, it is what it is and it's not the role of the dictionary to take up that fight.
Take up what fight? I just checked two dictionaries and both note that literally can be used as a simple intensifier
Oh, I mean the "fight" the person I'm replying to is suggesting, that dictionaries should be prescriptive (state how English should be, in this case arguing that "literal" shouldn't be a valid word to use when you're not being literal in the traditional sense), versus being descriptive (what dictionaries currently are, describing the language as it's used without any assertions about how it "should" be).
Dictionaries have been adamantly descriptive since their inception, so they're not at all doing what glitchdx is suggesting (thus literal having a secondary definition as an intensifier), and I'm arguing for the status quo.
The word 'thing' refers to a council of elders and NAUGHT ELSE
Yeah, I know that's how it is, I disagree on how it should be.
And how would you enforce that? Are you going to personally walk around the world hitting every person you disagree with in the face with a dictionary? And you think that will work?
I have no suggestion for enforcement, although your suggestion would be quite hilarious and I'm going to imagine doing that every time someone says "peruse" and means "to casually glance over".
So why do people only get up in arms over literally? Because it's the one they lived through? Here's a bunch of words I'm sure you're mostly, if not entirely fine with the dictionary listing their "new", opposite meaning, and probably use them the new way too. That's just off hand. There will be more if you google it.
You can't force the entire world to strictly follow a book on how words should be used. People are going to talk how they like. You can document how people are using words. That's what makes sense to do.
Awful
Original: Full of awe or inspiring reverence.
Now: Very bad or unpleasant.
Terrific
Original: Causing terror or fear.
Now: Excellent or great.
Egregious
Original: Remarkably good or distinguished.
Now: Shockingly bad.
Disinterested
Original: Unbiased, impartial.
Now: Uninterested, not caring.
Nonplussed
Original: Bewildered, perplexed.
Now: Unfazed or unimpressed.
I use 'literally' as my example because it is the simplest and easiest example available. You just listed several others, two of which I didn't know about, thank you for the knowledge and for helping my point.
They didn't live through it. It has been used an an exaggeration for more than a century.
Yes but not widely, and the point is, most people don't even know awful had a different definition. Argue all you want but the fact there's any controversy over literally shows we're living through the main transition of it having one main definition to two.
Good point. I am slightly salty about flammable and inflammable though.
That one can be a dangerous misunderstanding.
Nah, it's the wrong tool for that. Eventually both goals (to register and dictate usage) enter in conflict, so you end doing a sloppy job at one or both.
Plus a lot of prescriptions are that sort of silly "muh tradishun" thing; it's only there to reinforce oppression - because rich people, unlike poor people, have the luxury to spend their time learning older varieties of their language, instead of working to their bones. And the exceptions (e.g. prescribing against slurs) are easy to handle through guides.