Lots of times, when I say I’m a linguist (at least, a linguist-to-be), people tend to think that’s synonymous with “Grammarian”. Next thing you know, people are trying to drop in “whom” and all sorts of obscure, eighth-grade-english-teacher grammar points. Although the attempts are flattering, it’s really not what we do.

I’ve touched on the difference between descriptivism and prescriptivism a few times before (here, here and here), but I think it’s time for a formal discussion of the differences.

So, two professors walk into a bar. One, from the English department at the local university, is a steadfast prescriptivist. The other, is a descriptivist from the local Linguistics department. As they’re sitting there, the people in the booth behind them begin talking.

Patron One: “Hey, ain’t that the prettiest little thang over there back behind the bar? I wonder where she came from!”
Patron Two: “Wait, who’s you talkin’ about? Oooh, I see. She’s purty.”
Patron One: “Aww, damnit. She just left with Wallace.”

The prescriptivist would hear that and think that their speech is “incorrect”. “Ain’t” ain’t a word, you can’t end a sentence with a preposition, and the second man should have said “Wait, about whom are you talking?”. To him, their language would sound grating, uneducated, and just “wrong”.

The descriptivist, on the other hand, would hear the conversation differently. He’d realize (if nothing else from the look of raw fury on his companion’s face) that the language used was outside of traditional grammatical rules. However, he wouldn’t say it’s “wrong”. Obviously, both men accomplished something through their communication, and there was a mutual understanding of what was said. The wording wasn’t painfully ambiguous, and overall, the utterance (linguist-speak for a bit of language) functioned just fine. Also, he might notice that “whom” wasn’t used even in the context where it historically has been, possibly indicating a fall from favor among this particular group of speakers.

If you have trouble remembering which is which, just look at the names. The descriptivist describes the language used, without judging it. The prescriptivist prescribes a certain pattern of language use (just like a doctor would prescribe a diet), and feels that deviations are “incorrect”.

Linguists, in general, lean towards being descriptivists, because the field of linguistics is largely dedicated to describing language. Your Grade school english teachers were likely prescriptivists (I’m sorry Mrs. F, but “a lot” will likely be one word by the time your great great grandkids are born). They’re just two different perspectives on language usage, and each has its place.

So, when you talk to a linguist, talk like you would to anybody else. We’re always listening to language, but we’re not judging. Let your prepositions roam free, and worry not about superfluous whom insertion. As long as we understand each other, it’s all good.

(As a parting gift of sorts, here’s my favorite joke on the subject.)

A young, college Freshman walks into the English department on his campus, clearly lost. He walks up to a old man in an open office.
Timidly, he asks “Excuse me, where’s the library at?”
The professor scoffs with distaste.
“Young man, if you’d like answers from me, I’d advise you never to end your sentences with prepositions.”
The young student stands back, thinking for a second, and then rephrases his question. “Where’s the library at, you old fart?”

So, I stumbled across an interesting story on fark.com today (link requires totalfark subscription, as they decided not to publish this article). According to this article…

Knowledge of more than one language has been linked by Canadian researchers to a significant delay in the onset of dementia symptoms.

Fluency in two or more languages may be able to stave off cognitive decline because of the mental agility required to juggle them in day-to-day life, principal investigator Ellen Bialystok said.

“How you learn the language probably doesn’t make much difference; how good your grammar is probably doesn’t matter,” she said last night. “What matters is that you have to manage two complete language systems at once.”

According to this study, being bilingual or multilingual seemed to stave off dementia for an additional 4.1 years.

I think this is truly awesome. I’m a firm believer in language learning for fun and profit, but this is icing on the cake. I’d be interested to see if this increase in non-demented time showed up when you compared larger groups of, say, Midwestern Americans (generally painfully monolingual) with Europeans in mixed language areas.

Mind you, this isn’t the first time that the health effects of monolingualism have been discussed. A few years back, a French language school (in France) ran ads featuring the following (tongue-in-cheek) voiceover:

In Japan, very little fat is eaten, and the heart attack rate is lower than in the USA.

In France, a lot of fat is eaten, and the heart attack rate is lower than in the USA.

In India, very little red wine is drunk, and the heart attack rate is lower than in the USA.

In Spain, a lot of red wine is drunk, and the heart attack rate is lower than in the USA.

In Brazil, people have much more sex than in Algeria, and the heart attack rate in both countries is lower than in the USA.

In conclusion:
Eat.
Drink.
Have as much sex as you’d like.
What really kills you is speaking English.

So, get out there and learn another language, if you can. Just think, even if taking it drives you crazy for four years now, at least you know you’ll get four years of sanity back later. Ahh, the wonders of language…

So, I’ve posted in the past about the difficulty of choosing “a” versus “an”. Generally, it’s not very difficult to decide. You use “an” before a word beginning with a vowel sound (”an enemy”, “an alley”) and “a” if the next word starts with a consonant sound (”a university”, “a shark”). However, this time, I’m stumped.

I was making a post today about Apple’s iPhone on a forum, and wanted to express my wish that they might install a hard drive in it to raise the capacity. However, it’s a fairly computer literate forum, so I was using the abbreviation for Hard drive (”HD”). So, I ended up with this sentence:

I hope that they’ll offer a version of it with __ HD next year.

The reason I’ve left the blank there is because I was stumped as to which article to use. If I expanded it to “Hard Drive”, I would use “a”, because “Hard” starts with a consonant. However, “HD” starts with a spoken vowel when said aloud (”aitch dee”) (loosely transcribed as /eit∫ di/), which would require “an”.

So, as a spoken abbreviation, it’s obviously “an”, but if the reader substitutes the full word, it uses “a”. This could happen elsewhere (”a(n) SQL server”, “an FAA regulation”), but seldom are the acronym and the real word as interchangable.

I’m stumped. I ended up cheating (”a larger HD”), but I’m curious what you all would do in this situation, if given the option to pick one or the other. This is an F’ing frustrating question. Wait… would that be “a F’ing”? I give up. :p