Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Subscribing to, or related to,
descriptivism . - noun An advocate of
descriptivism ; one who believes alanguage is defined byusage rather thantheory .
Etymologies
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Examples
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CheckEnclosed: I can understand a certain descriptivist reticence to criticize improper use of the term, but will not give up the fight for its proper use.
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Are you a prescriptivist in descriptivist clothing?
None is, none are: Grammar according to Clarkson « Motivated Grammar 2009
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I can understand a certain descriptivist reticence to criticize improper use of the term, but will not give up the fight for its proper use.
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CheckEnclosed: I can understand a certain descriptivist reticence to criticize improper use of the term, but will not give up the fight for its proper use.
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Such claims rely on what philosophers of language call descriptivist theories of reference, according to which a word's denotation is determined by the descriptions or the contents of the beliefs that constitute the word's meaning, intension, or sense.
Relativism Swoyer, Chris 2003
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The "descriptivist" vs. "prescriptivist" debate has to do with a languages rules of grammar, not with arbitrary rules of style.
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It would be "descriptivist" to refer to him as Duh Poap Bennuhdigged 16 hyperbole, I know -- even in descriptivism that would usually be seen as wrong.
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There's simply nothing "descriptivist" about referring to Pope Benedict as Pope Benedict.
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It’s what you’d call descriptivist, but it’s what everybody would aspire to, once they’d seen itdone.
The Volokh Conspiracy » The Trouble with Some Prescriptivist Claims: 2007
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"descriptivist" conception that the referent of a term is picked out by a description which constitutes the analytic definition of the term in question.
Scientific Realism Boyd, Richard 2002
arby commented on the word descriptivist
A follower of the linguistic school of thought that believes that language is made by the speakers and there is no "wrong" usage if it exists in the wild. Isn't Noam Chomsky a descriptivist, or am I misremembering?
June 27, 2008