Prescriptivism By Jesse Sheidlower

A prescriptivist is someone who believes that rules are needed to preserve a language. A descriptivist on the other hand describes languages as they change. In the documentary, Jesse Sheidlower, who works as the editor of the August Oxford dictionary, explains how American English has “always taken pride in its slang” and references Walt Whitman from the nineteenth century saying that slang is the “American spirit distilled into language.” He often looks in different magazines to pick up new terms. John Simon, a critic of the New York Magazine, believes that through the ignorance of grammar rules and the use of slang will lead to the language’s downfall. While he admits, change may be unavoidable, he also make a statement that cancer is possibly unavoidable but “we shouldn’t help it along.”
I would consider myself more of a descriptivist.
In my opinion language is constantly changing and evolving. While I do try to follow grammar rules to the best of my ability while writing, I rarely apply it to my speaking. A lot of times I shorten phrases while talking. I also pick up of certain phrases from the media, such as “bias” to refer to my favorite member in a Korean pop group and “ship” to refer to a certain pairing in a show or book that I support as a couple. While both words exist in American English, they have different meanings in standard English. If I were to use these terms while speaking to somebody like my parents or other people who may not have the same interests, then it would cause a lot of
confusion.