The Perennial Difficulty of Defining What ‘Descriptive’ Means in Grammar

“Correct” summerhouse

“Incorrect” summerhouse

I have a distinguished colleague who unceasingly tries to persuade me to see that my attempts at descriptive grammar really have a prescriptive subtext. We were both participants in a workshop on the history and philosophy of linguistics last week, and the dispute reared its ugly head again.

Being a descriptive linguist has nothing to do with the crazy notion that “anything goes” or the absurd idea th...