Seriously, Hydra, I am not being snooty. My sigh was plebian and to the point.
If that's your plebian, I fear your patrician!
I simply find your characterization of the descriptivist camp exasperatingly false. You choose to label me and other linguists as everything goes anarchists, and, in your mudslinging attitude from on high in your armchair, that's perfectly okay with you.
There's a difference between mudslinging and frankness. I didn't, for example, call descriptivists vulgar swine or repulsive scum. I merely said it seems to me they lack all taste.
But my view on these matters is far from settled, though so far, I'm leaning towards rejecting both pigeonholes as unhelpful. If it's not too vulgarly common sensical, I think the best benchmark is the completely unqualifiable one of personal taste.
So, be it. Leave me be, and I'll try to leave you alone, too.
Has it really come to that, Jim?
It seems to me you have come to identify with descriptivism to such an extent that you take criticism of it as personal criticism. Well, none was intended, sir.
