a prescriptivist's nightmare and a descriptivist's dream

Mad as used by the teacher in the dialogue does not mean a lot; it means very or way. Mad is a troublesome word. Many folks use it as a synonym for angry. This upsets some. I'm not sure that descriptive linguists dream of ESL/EFL classes and the kind of mistakes that student regularly make in them. (I know this from experience as I am currently taking Japanese lessons at work with some colleagues.) Descriptivists merely try to describe language as it is actually used by speakers and writers. Prescriptivists try to control how people speak and write, often resorting to extra-linguistic rationalizations for why some common usage is "incorrect".

[Corrected mistaken identity.]

Last edited by zmjezhd; 12/20/08 05:24 PM.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.