I dunno, how “prescriptivist” is it really to notice something about how people talk, and know where it comes from, but still strongly dislike it on a personal level? Like you aren’t arguing that “unalive” is somehow a misusage of the word, or that it’s ungrammatical — you’re just saying that you find the word “unalive” grating, right? And the reason why you find the word grating is presumably because of the context around where it’s used and how it proliferated. I think we all know deep down that if we weren’t in the context of worldwide average screen time being six hours and forty minutes per day, with capitalists creating these Skinner boxes with robots carefully curating content, thereby forcing people to invent all sorts of bizarre euphemisms… That “unalive” would be exactly as grating as “red rum” or “kick the bucket” or “curtains” or any of the other less serious sounding euphemisms for death or murder already out there.
Honestly, it’s like how I go to the grocery store and I notice it says “peanutbutter” and “hotdogs” instead of “peanøttsmør” and “pølser”. Like I’m not going to act like American English having a profound impact on the grammar and vocabulary of Norwegian is strictly “incorrect”, because, like, my own Norwegian is noticeably Americanized, I literally grew up speaking American English at home and I know that it’s generally bad for one’s mental health to act like one’s natural way of speaking is incorrect and needs to be fixed… But I still dislike “peanutbutter” and “hotdogs”. And more specifically I dislike the context and implication of it. In other words, whenever I speak Americanized Norwegian, it’s self-expression, it’s a cohesive and beautiful lect shaped by unique circumstances; but whenever others speak Americanized Norwegian, it’s the Great Satan imposing its culture and language on the rest of the world in the name of capitalist exploitation and yadda yadda… And I honestly just think it’s OK to be opposed to that without throwing the baby out with the bathwater, you know?
So yeah, all in all, like, being a “descriptivist” shouldn’t have to mean emotionally dulling yourself, you know? It shouldn’t have to count as “prescriptivism” to notice how the world around us shapes the way we talk and, in disliking the current state of the world around us, being disturbed by how it manifests in our speech. The important thing to understand is that the language is a symptom, and so it is the cause that should be treated.
I dunno, how “prescriptivist” is it really to notice something about how people talk, and know where it comes from, but still strongly dislike it on a personal level? Like you aren’t arguing that “unalive” is somehow a misusage of the word, or that it’s ungrammatical — you’re just saying that you find the word “unalive” grating, right? And the reason why you find the word grating is presumably because of the context around where it’s used and how it proliferated. I think we all know deep down that if we weren’t in the context of worldwide average screen time being six hours and forty minutes per day, with capitalists creating these Skinner boxes with robots carefully curating content, thereby forcing people to invent all sorts of bizarre euphemisms… That “unalive” would be exactly as grating as “red rum” or “kick the bucket” or “curtains” or any of the other less serious sounding euphemisms for death or murder already out there.
Honestly, it’s like how I go to the grocery store and I notice it says “peanutbutter” and “hotdogs” instead of “peanøttsmør” and “pølser”. Like I’m not going to act like American English having a profound impact on the grammar and vocabulary of Norwegian is strictly “incorrect”, because, like, my own Norwegian is noticeably Americanized, I literally grew up speaking American English at home and I know that it’s generally bad for one’s mental health to act like one’s natural way of speaking is incorrect and needs to be fixed… But I still dislike “peanutbutter” and “hotdogs”. And more specifically I dislike the context and implication of it. In other words, whenever I speak Americanized Norwegian, it’s self-expression, it’s a cohesive and beautiful lect shaped by unique circumstances; but whenever others speak Americanized Norwegian, it’s the Great Satan imposing its culture and language on the rest of the world in the name of capitalist exploitation and yadda yadda… And I honestly just think it’s OK to be opposed to that without throwing the baby out with the bathwater, you know?
So yeah, all in all, like, being a “descriptivist” shouldn’t have to mean emotionally dulling yourself, you know? It shouldn’t have to count as “prescriptivism” to notice how the world around us shapes the way we talk and, in disliking the current state of the world around us, being disturbed by how it manifests in our speech. The important thing to understand is that the language is a symptom, and so it is the cause that should be treated.