0 the belief that there are correct and wrong ways to use language and that books about language should give rules to follow, rather than describing how language is really used:
There has been a blurring of the sharp distinction between descriptivism and prescriptivism in the writings of grammarians and lexicographers.
There are of course many people, including language scholars of great probity, who are watchful about prescription and hostile to 'prescriptivism'.
Younger teachers are by and large unaware of grammatical prescriptivism arguments while all teachers have awareness of the need to address and reform linguistic discrimination.
For example, since we linguists all agree in rejecting prescriptivism,7 we can speak with one voice in favour of non-standard8 dialects.
I don't doubt the value of descriptive linguistics - up to the point when descriptivists dogmatically refuse to acknowledge the value of prescriptivism.
Pronunciation has to be 'correct' (again, prescriptivism and the popular beliefs about spelling and pronunciation), clear, and intelligible.
To them, prescriptivism as such is not the bane of effective teaching and learning.
It is my contention that prescriptivism should rule the day with punctuation, although, in most instances, it should adhere to a descriptive analysis of speech.
The growth of the form, however, was sometimes challenged by writers on the language at a time when prescriptivism was dominant.
