- From: Philip & Le Khanh <Philip-and-LeKhanh@Royal-Tunbridge-Wells.Org>
- Date: Sun, 06 May 2007 11:59:46 +0100
- To: www-html@w3.org, public-html@w3.org
Anne van Kesteren wrote: > Also, you seem to completely ignore the other point Maciej made (and > question): > > # Are the semantics defined solely by the specification (Prescriptivism) > # or informed by actual use (Descriptivism)? For human languages, > # linguists generally take the Descriptivist approach. This turns out to > # be a more productive way to interpret artifacts in human languages such > # as English. I'll return to your earlier point later : it requires careful thought before composition. But the latter point is more easily addressed : "Descriptivism" is more common on English-speaking countries than in some others -- "L'Académie Française" is unashamably prescriptive (and proscriptive), as is (I believe) its German counterpart. The current Anglophone obsession with descriptivism is simply leading to a loss of precision : most now write "like x" where "such as x" would have once been the norm. As a result, it is no longer clear (when "like" is used) whether "x" includes or excludes the topic under discussion. But the loss of precisions leads to a concomittant loss in understanding : the subtle nuances of the educated speaker are lost when they are interpreted by those whose lack any formal knowledge of grammar, or whose vocabularies are too limited to encompass the idiolect of the speaker. By "dumbing down" HTML, we risk losing the ability to express ourselves through its medium without risk of ambiguity or misunderstanding : that is, IMHO, too great a price to pay simply in order to ensure that it is "accessible" (from an authoring perspective) to /hoi polloi/. Philip Taylor
Received on Sunday, 6 May 2007 10:59:46 UTC