Taking descriptivism to a higher level

[nancylebov]

smallship1 is a proud proscriptivist.

I prefer to get outside the system--here's my comment:

Alternate theory: Language keeps changing, but needs to be kept stable enough to be useful.

It's both good and natural to have people pulling in both directions, according to what usages feel plausible to them.

I'm not sure how much language change comes from great writers, how much from slang, and how much from mainstream drift.

Second thought: I'm not sure how much the important resistance to change comes from people who invoke rules and stability and how much is from people who just don't use the changes they don't like.

Comments

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm wildly overgeneralizing, but so far as contemporary art is concerned, my impression is that abstract art is more respectable-- more likely to show up in galleries. And the more editions a book has, and the more it's presented as a classic, the less likely it is to have new representational art on the cover.

What's your take (probably better informed than mine) on the status of representational art?

[avram]

My take is that if we're talking about what our culture takes seriously, we shouldn't be looking at art galleries, which only a small fraction of our population actually cares about.

The visual art form that American culture finds the most important and engaging is the movies, and movies are pretty much entirely representational.