I’m not a prescriptivist, I swear. As someone who is math-oriented (and maybe has some neurodivergent features), I like formal rules. I enjoy treating English grammar like a math problem; and, due to the circumstances of my upbringing, I am highly proficient at “standard” English. When I was younger I understood this to be a…
Tag: prescriptivism
The conspiracy theory that revolves around wordplay
So-called “sovereign citizens” make up a collection of people with vaguely similar beliefs about government and the law. I say so-called not to deride people for calling themselves that, but rather because they often do not call themselves that. Instead, it has become a label that people in the mainstream use to describe individuals with…
Words don’t have meanings
There is an argument I have heard. It goes like this: “Words have meanings.” The implication is that one cannot just use words to mean whatever they want, the words have defined meanings and these definitions are the only things those words can mean. I have seen this argument used a variety of contexts, from…
thoughts on mind 