Prescriptivism Must Die!

@mgrammar.bsky.social

208 Followers 42 Following

Psycholinguist, and the guy who used to write Motivated Grammar. He/him. Erstwhile blogger: https://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com Prosecute ICE and send Homan to the Hague.

Screenshot from the Simpsons of a panel of children on the left-hand side, looking at a kindly older man on the right. Behind them is a one-way mirror and a sign that says "Audience Research". The image is from the episode the "itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show".
Snippet from the Kansas City Star: At a committee hearing, he announced that his family had been affected by the scourge of “long COVID,” a condition that can persist for months or years after contracting the virus. “This is personal for me,” he said. “One of my loved ones is one of those 16 million people who suffer from Long COVID, incapacitated for some two years.” The condition, Marshall said, is like mononucleosis “that never goes away.” Read more at: https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readers-opinion/guest-commentary/article284591385.html#storylink=cpy
Dril tweet from 2014: drunk driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or not,
Snippet from a Guardian article ( https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/28/home-office-used-ai-hallucinated-information-to-refuse-asylum-claim-judge-suggests ): But the document could not be found, although its existence was relied upon by a judge who rejected her appeal against the Home Office’s refusal decision in an immigration court known as the first-tier tribunal. The woman lodged a further appeal to a more senior court, the upper tribunal, where another judge raised concerns about the unlocated document. In a decision on 14 July, the judge said: “It appears that no such CPIN has ever existed.”
Text snippet from the corrosive Atlantic article rehabilitating Richard Hanania for being hateable but also right about everything. It reads: "Hanania’s theory of populism implies that this won’t actually win back the working class. That’s because “Oligarchy is the problem” is itself an elite belief, as the use of a word like oligarchy suggests."
A Google Trends screenshot of search interest in Tom Nichols from 2004 to 2026. Negligible interest in him until a slight rise in 2015, then a big peak near the end of Trump's first term. Dropping interest under Biden, a second peak in 2024, and now sliding toward irrelevance.
The thirteenth amendment does not permit the withholding or the deprivation of any right necessarily inhering in freedom. It not only struck down the institution of slavery as previously existing in the United States, but it prevents the imposition of any burdens or disabilities that constitute badges of slavery or servitude. It decreed universal civil freedom in this country. This court has so adjudged. But, that amendment having been found inadequate to the protection of the rights of those who had been in slavery, it was followed by the fourteenth amendment, which added greatly to the dignity and glory of American citizenship, and to the security of personal liberty, by declaring that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside,' and that 'no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.' These two amendments, if enforced according to their true intent and meaning, will protect all the civil rights that pertain to freedom and citizenship. Finally, and to the end that no citizen should be denied, on account of his race, the privilege of participating in the political control of his country, it was declared by the fifteenth amendment that 'the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.'
On policy, the 2024 Manifesto was strong on high-level ambitious language but weaker on the mechanisms of delivery. Electorally, this was a masterstroke, allowing much hope to be projected onto Starmer and what each voter believed he might be offering. As a blueprint for government though it was too woolly to give definition to a project – an approach to leadership that Starmer outright rejected anyway.
Google Books Ngram viewer graph on "trash talk". It's basically at zero before 1990, then steadily rises through the 2010s before levelling off.
A Youtube comment with 38 upvotes, and liked by the video poster. It says: "This is where our money should go to help our fellow Americans who have lost so much not the things it shouldn't go to."
An advertisement. A view out of an airplane window with a beautiful shoreline below. Text overlay reads: "I have seen so many extraordinary things that nothing seems extraordinary to me" An ad for Voltaire.
A picture of a sunset and clouds outside an airplane window. Text over the image reads: "All men are by nature free; you have therefore an undoubted liberty to depart whenever you please, but will have many and great difficulties to encounter in passing the frontiers." An ad for Voltaire.
Waffles on a white plate. On the left is a waffle ice cream sandwich, with a bite taken out of it. On the right is plain piece of waffle. A book is in the bokeh in the background.
Three suggested searches after I searched for "pronoun police": * shadow the hedgehog radical left speedrunning * shadow the hedgehog petersonian * knuckles is in your walls
A Google search for "vaginated persons" reveals only three hits. One is the essay I'm quoting, one is a blogpost talking about a misogynistic director and uses "women" in the same sentence as "vaginated persons", and the third is claiming that "Woketards" say it.
Screenshot of a paragraph of an essay. It reads: In all this, political feminism has largely sold out the rights of women, as it often does. Accepting that biological males are real "women," just because they say so, has even resulted in the near abolition of the word "woman." Mothers are "birthing persons." Biological women are, insultingly, "vaginated persons." So feminism, which began by urging women to dress and act like men, now has succeeded in replacing women with men as "women," while voiding the use of the word for real women. This might be thought to expose the actual misogyny of feminism, already suspected by Christina Hoff Sommers. Women who object to all this, like J.K. Rowling, are accused of the (comical) political crime of "transphobia." That Rowling was previously a reliable leftist is forgotten. [The sentence "Biological women are, insultingly, 'vaginated persons.'" is highlighted.]
Image from the Simpsons of Homer, Marge, and Maggie inside a mall, looking at a parrot. Marge says "Look, Homer, there's that bird you like to argue with." Homer goes over to the parrot and argues with it, with the bird just blinking at him, because it can't understand what he's talking about and just repeats English-like sounds.
This is a screenshot from a conversation with Microsoft Copilot. The conversation is transcribed below. MY QUESTION: Please complete the following sentence as naturally and grammatically as you can: John handed Bill a chart. He ______ COPILOT RESPONSE: Most natural completion: John handed Bill a chart. He looked it over carefully. That keeps the pronoun He ambiguous in a natural, conversational way — either John or Bill could be the one examining the chart, which mirrors how English often works in real dialogue.
A multi-colored sunset, with pink clouds and a layer of golden light near the bottom. Silhouettes of palm trees connect the sky to the ground.
A black and white cat with big, wide open eyes and a goofy look on her face. She's staring straight up at something off screen that she seems to find completely fascinating.
English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *méǵh₂s
George W Bush giving a thumbs-up with a somewhat sad expression on his face. He's standing at a podium on an aircraft carrier with a huge "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner behind him. He won the next election, by the way. We have always been happy to be lied to by our leaders.
Tweet from Noah Smith: "Leftists are often downwardly mobile children of successful parents, who use leftism to try to force their way into the elite they believe to be their birthright." Citing a tweet with linear correlations to near-categorical data, because he is a statistical moron.
Tweet from @johnpodesta. Hillary's strategy to defeat Isis: ✓Defeat Isis in Syria & Iraq ✓Disrupt & dismantle terrorist infrastructure ✓Harden our defenses
chyron at the bottom of a YouTube video. Logo for the "Tonight Show" on the left, and the band playing in the video listed on the right. It says "FC*KERS: I LIKE IT LIKE THAT"
OJ Simpson's book "IF I DID IT", whose cover distastefully hides the "IF" inside the "I" so it seems to just say "I DID IT".
Although the Arikapú tribe must have had thousands of members before contact with Westerners, their language is now on the verge of extinction with only two elderly speakers. The total number of individuals that identify ethnically with Arikapú is slightly larger. The Arikapú language is not used any more, since one of its two remaining speakers lives in the T.I. Rio Branco and the other one in the T.I. Guaporé. When these two individuals pass away, the Arikapú language will be extinct, because it was not passed on to the younger generations.
Table of Reta numerals from Willemsen 2020. 1 through 6 are monomorphemic (can't be broken down, like English "six"), but 7 through 9 are multimorphemic (can be broken down, like English "two hundred"). 7 through 9 use subtraction from alternate forms of 10.
Secondly, there is an interesting sound-symbolic type of contrast in which a word containing /r/ is phonaesthemically derived from a word with /l/, and sees an increase in vulgarity, severity, force of action, or size (7). It is likely that this contrast is ultimately a result of borrowing from Blagar: /r/ is rare in native Reta vocabulary, and many occurrences are loans from either Blagar or Malay. Further, many instances of /r/ in Blagar words correspond to /l/ in Reta (e.g. Bl. jar ‘water’, Rt. jial ‘water’). This distinction is unproductive but, with over 30 attested pairs, is lexically well-preserved. This contrast is described in detail in Willemsen and Hjorth Miltersen (forthcoming)
A black and white cat yawning with her mouth wide open
A shirt that reflects our sociopathic society, reading "No one cares work harder"
A recent interview Naomi Wolf not only conducted but promoted: "Can a Surprising Condiment Clear Microplastics? (Sponsored)
Screenshot of a CNBC headline: Trump promises 'largest tax refund of all time.' What you can expect
Two paintings by Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri on display in a sterile gallery. They depict abstract patterns, similar to tightly drawn contour maps. The one on the left is a deep red-orange with cream colored lines; the one on the right is a deep grey with cream colored lines. They draw me in like rake lines in a rock garden.
Screenshot from the New York Times: Luke Broadwater Dec. 15, 2025, 12:30 p.m. ET 41 minutes ago White House reporter Although there is no evidence that the stabbing deaths of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, were at all connected to his Democratic politics, President Trump seized on their deaths to attack the Hollywood couple, suggesting that their criticism of him may have led to the killings. The president wrote on Truth Social that the couple’s deaths were “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS.” Trump’s post led to immediate outrage, even from some fellow Republicans. “Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered,” Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, wrote on social media. “I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White House staff will just ignore it because they’re afraid? I challenge anyone to defend it.”
Pictures of a magzine profile of Gavin Newsom and his then-partner Kimberly Guilfoyle,taken in the decadent parlor of Ann Getty's mansion in Pacific Heights, San Francisco.
A message from a viewer that CNN chose to highlight: EITHER YOU ARE WITH THE U.S.OR YOU ARE AGAINST IT. WE ARE WITH THE U.S.
A sequence of screenshots in a playlist of CNN clips from September 14, 2001. In the coverage before 8am, the chyron at the bottom always says "America Under Attack". After 9am, it switches to "America's New War".
Water falling over Horseshoe Falls; you can just barely see the water at the bottom of the falls through the spray
Rich brave he-man governor Gavin Newsom grimaces with the workload of making sure that he's thrown out every last possession of people who he does nothing to help. LA Times photograph of our 2028 hero of the common man.
An image of Garfield (the comic strip cat) with text below it reading "YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO PROPAGANDA". It's a meme that dates back to 2018 and is mostly used on Tumblr, home to people who almost everyone writing about this story thinks are dumber than them. Whoops, turns out they get things better than you do.
ABC News headline: "Covet an Italian masterpiece, but shy of the millions? How about a digital copy at super car prices"
Screenshot from an AI image/video site, showing off an app: "Make your girlfriend say sorry!" "you can use this app to generate videos of your girlfriend apologising for fun and pranks!!!"
All caps text: “A computer can never be held accountable. Therefore a computer must never make a management decision.” For more on this, see: https://blog.apaonline.org/2023/04/13/responsibility-and-automated-decision-making-draft/
A picture of Elon Musk looking like the old out-of-shape lunkhead he is.
The end of a tweet from moral paragon Larry Summers, posted November 10: Many of the students I have engaged with at the Crimson have high integrity and smarts but I do hope alumni trustees will investigate and take any necessary steps lest a problematic situation deteriorate further.
Andrew Cuomo standing outside a Chick-Fil-A in a TikTok video from his campaign captioned "We have to win."
Headline: As destruction of the East Wing gets underway, where does that leave the first lady?
Screen capture from the Simpsons; Sideshow Bob and Mayor Quimby debating, with Quimby looking half-dead.
Notes from the Publisher (Pete Hegseth '03 as an undergrad at Princeton): [I'm skipping to the relevant part:] All this talk of "diversity" has diverted Princeton from its original academic focus: Western civilization and the curious combination of Socrates and Christ, strength and humility, democracy and piety, Athens and Jerusalem. Diversity is a note-worthy discussion topic, yet highly overvalued at this University.
Buff Doge vs. Cheems meme. Buff Doge is labelled "Kids back in 2010's" and says "I broke a bone but its ok, now I know what to not do". He is the hero of this meme. Cheems, a crying doge, is labelled "Kids now" and says "Oweeeeee! I scraped my knee. I'm never touching grass again." He is the pathetic villain of the meme. Also, he speaks with alternating upper and lowercase letters but that's really annoying to type. Oh no, I've gone meta. 2025 meme makers: alternating capitals is annoying to type but worth it to capture the joke. 2025 descriptivist grammarians: oh, my poor lazy fingers don't want to hit shift forty times. i'll just pretend that they typed it normally so i can go back to reading bluesky.
Screenshot from a spreadsheet reading: "🕳️ | 2014 | Smileys & Emotion | emotion | hole"
Text that says "I now know a few books I'll be buying for my newborn that I'd never heard of before."
Notes from the Publisher (Pete Hegseth '03 as an undergrad at Princeton): [I'm skipping to the relevant part:] All this talk of "diversity" has diverted Princeton from its original academic focus: Western civilization and the curious combination of Socrates and Christ, strength and humility, democracy and piety, Athens and Jerusalem. Diversity is a note-worthy discussion topic, yet highly overvalued at this University.
"This whole business is so mystifying that it exemplifies one of two types of Jewish law. There are mishpatim, mitzvot whose reasoning is totally obvious (don't murder, don't steal, provide for those in poverty) and then there are chukkim, mitzvot whose reasoning can be summed up as, basically: "Uh, because God said so?" Why are we not supposed to wear wool and linen together? Why is shrimp off the menu? What's this business with the red heifer?" Quoted from: https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/heifer/ by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
A black-and-white cat walks on a wooden floor, with an irritated face, because she wants food NOW