Herb,
   This sort of confusion is critical to those of us who want to orient 
students to standard practice without necessarily being limited by it. 
Usually, that means selecting or recommending a good handbook, but 
presenting it as a conservative sort of advice. It can cause nothing but 
confusion if a teacher gives idiosyncratic advice (as Brad does), but 
presents it as a standard advice. This is the "right way", the "correct 
way", implies that there's a consensus. Brad keeps saying over and over 
again that the handbooks and grammar books have it all wrong. If this is 
a unique view, then you can't assert the weight of authority behind it.

Craig
STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:
> There have been studies, including some published in CCC, I believe, demonstrating that composition teachers do not agree on what the prescriptive rules are and that papers may pass or fail depending on whose prescriptive rules are governing the decision.  We assume that there is a well known, widely agreed upon body of rules that we call prescriptive grammar.  It turns out that this ostensibly public grammar is a construct that doesn't in fact have the same content from one teacher/editor/critic/ to another.  This inconsistency leads to considerable frustration on the part of students, who frequently have different instructors demanding opposite treatments of points of grammar, as we have all learned from our own students' frustrations.
>
> Herb
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of O'Sullivan, Brian P
> Sent: 2009-04-30 12:13
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Making Peace In The Language Wars
>
> I agree that descriptivists and prescriptivists each have valid jobs to do and needn't be either merged or opposed to each other. The tricky part, though, is whether and how prescription is informed by description. 
>
> Without describing "how people actually speak [or write]," or how the most respected speakers and writers actually speak and write, how will we know what to prescribe? If we assume, a priori and without checking, that we know "the standard to which educated people adhere," don't we risk replicating antiquated or folkloric standards and making ourselves irrelevant? If, hypothetically, writers win pulitzers and critical acclaim while violating presumed conventions, doesn't it seem unlikely that these particular conventions really affect how "educated people...judge the writing of others"?
>
> Brian 
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Brad Johnston
> Sent: Thu 4/30/2009 11:14 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Making Peace In The Language Wars
>  
> Someone wrote:
>
>  
>
> It is a pleasure to see in action an accomplished linguist such as Jespersen, who understands that the language exists as the product of those who speak it, who observes carefully, and who reports on actual language practices as exemplified by celebrated practitioners. Compare that with our resident fanatic, who considers himself a language dictator and who reports on the practices of our most eminent writers and linguists only so he can pronounce them to be in violation of his peculiar dictates.
>
>   
>
> ~~~~~~~~~ 
>
>   
> Garner's Modern American Usage, by Bryan A. Garner, c.2003.
>  
> Making Peace In The Language Wars -page xxxi-
>  
> Prescribers seek to guide the users of a language -- including native speakers -- on how to handle words as effectively as possible. Describers seek to discover the facts of how native speakers actually use their language.
>  
>
> ~~~~~~~~~
>  
> This speaks to the difference between what linguists do, study how people actually speak, and what grammar teachers should do, instruct students in what is considered "standard" for their era.
>  
> Language changes over time but in any given era, e.g., 19th century England or 21st century America, there is a standard to which educated people adhere and by which they judge the writing of others and, to a lesser degree, the speech of others. Such a standard makes the language more precise and makes the transmission of ideas and information more reliable than is typical of the language of the streets.
>  
> .brad.30apr09. 
> 	
>
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