February 18, 2023: The Inner Prescriptivist Bursts Forth -

Linguists like to imagine a scale for English speakers (maybe all speakers – what do I know?)  that runs from Prescriptivist (this is the RIGHT way to speak, write, or punctuate) to Descriptivist (this is how people ACTUALLY speak, write, and punctuate).  As a construct, that scale rings true to me.  

Most of the folks I know, myself included, are neither purely Prescriptive, nor purely Descriptive.  We might lean one way or the other, but at selected moments, we become Wafflers, case by case. For instance, I know a few highly Prescriptive types who will say, “It is I!” instead of “It’s me.” but they do it very self-consciously, and as if they are joking just a little bit. Or they may have stopped fussing about  sentences ending in a preposition, even though they still get bent about how people use “hopefully.”

 (If you would like to get unbent over “hopefully,” I refer you here.)

At the same time, many of us who are trying to become less judgmental, classist, and rule-bound still wince at the occasional new coinage, or elastic definition, or violation of some rule we learned in junior high. When I wince, my current Linguistics professor laughs and says it’s my Inner Prescriptivist coming out.

All of which is to say, my Inner Prescriptivist rushed into the room when I read the following excerpt from this semester’s textbook:

[L]inguists in the generative tradition are always quick to stress that languages are more alike underlyingly than they seem superficially….

(Lieber, Rochelle. Introducing Morphology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.)

If nothing in that phrase bothered you, carry on! Go your way, singing tra-la-la.

But if, like me, you are going to lose sleep over “underlyingly,” send me a better alternative. Just don’t send  “subficially.”  I am fond of “subficially,” and I use it when I’m kidding, but I don’t claim it’s BETTER than “underlyingly.”  I’m looking for BETTER.