Well, “most linguists” is a phrase that really cries out for some Wiki tags. “Citation needed”, “who”, and “weasel words” come to mind. That aside, I do not see what Strunk and White has to do with it; they were giving advice on writing style, not on how to express yourself un-ambiguously. As for fewer and less, and which and that, I don’t see where these gave rise to any actual precision of language. Saying ‘fewer people’ is not actually needed to inform you that people are countable; you already know that. So the alleged additional information is redundant. Which is, indeed, why people don’t bother with the distinction, and why linguists merely catalog the usage. Your examples are quite different both from the original “not all are/all are not” distinction, and from the ones in the essay, and thus don’t actually carry your point.
You did not give anecdotes; you made assertions. There’s a difference. If I say “Person such-and-such, who is a linguist, told me this-and-that”, this is anecdotal evidence that linguists hold such a position. If I say “Most linguists think”, that is assertion.
I see. In that case, let me rephrase: every member of the class of linguists that I am aware of, including but not limited to the ones on Language Log, the ones at my old department and the ones at my current department, think that Strunk and White and other similar prescriptivism is a load of crap and are in favour of usage-based grammaticality.
I also request that any subsequent comments I make in this thread be downvoted, because I am clearly having problems disengaging.
Again, what do Strunk and White have to do with it? They were giving advice on writing style, saying “If you say it this way your readers will like your writing better”, not “This is the correct way to say it”. Now perhaps they gave bad advice, it is a point on which reasonable men might differ, but what of it? To beat up on Strunk and White may be popular, but it has nothing to do with prescriptivism in linguistics.
As for the wiki tags, Language Log provides some examples. I don’t think these examples have to include the precision aspect of the question to support the claim that Raymond is over-reaching in his attack on the “popular usage” position.
Well, “most linguists” is a phrase that really cries out for some Wiki tags. “Citation needed”, “who”, and “weasel words” come to mind. That aside, I do not see what Strunk and White has to do with it; they were giving advice on writing style, not on how to express yourself un-ambiguously. As for fewer and less, and which and that, I don’t see where these gave rise to any actual precision of language. Saying ‘fewer people’ is not actually needed to inform you that people are countable; you already know that. So the alleged additional information is redundant. Which is, indeed, why people don’t bother with the distinction, and why linguists merely catalog the usage. Your examples are quite different both from the original “not all are/all are not” distinction, and from the ones in the essay, and thus don’t actually carry your point.
You ask for anecdotal evidence and then demand citations when given some? I’m tapping out of this conversation for good.
You did not give anecdotes; you made assertions. There’s a difference. If I say “Person such-and-such, who is a linguist, told me this-and-that”, this is anecdotal evidence that linguists hold such a position. If I say “Most linguists think”, that is assertion.
I see. In that case, let me rephrase: every member of the class of linguists that I am aware of, including but not limited to the ones on Language Log, the ones at my old department and the ones at my current department, think that Strunk and White and other similar prescriptivism is a load of crap and are in favour of usage-based grammaticality.
I also request that any subsequent comments I make in this thread be downvoted, because I am clearly having problems disengaging.
Again, what do Strunk and White have to do with it? They were giving advice on writing style, saying “If you say it this way your readers will like your writing better”, not “This is the correct way to say it”. Now perhaps they gave bad advice, it is a point on which reasonable men might differ, but what of it? To beat up on Strunk and White may be popular, but it has nothing to do with prescriptivism in linguistics.
As for the wiki tags, Language Log provides some examples. I don’t think these examples have to include the precision aspect of the question to support the claim that Raymond is over-reaching in his attack on the “popular usage” position.