Re: Cleaning House

Philip & Le Khanh:
> "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.

Jftr., there is no direct German counterpart to the Académie  
Française. There has been vivid discussion for the past ten years  
about who is in charge of orthographic rules, though.

Note that there are different kinds of rules: ones noöne can change,  
ones someone may change, ones anyone can change for oneself, and ones  
everyone is changing all the time little by little. (That is just one  
way to categorize them, though.) Spoken language falls mostly in the  
domain of the latter two. So does written language, but it is often  
governed to some degree (second type). Computer languages otoh. are  
prescribed for the most part.

Received on Sunday, 6 May 2007 20:34:47 UTC