I’ve seen descriptivists take the position that if enough people use a made up word it counts as communication, but the only people I’ve ever seen saying “well I’m gonna call a tree a xopo instead” are prescriptivists who don’t understand descriptivism.
There are so many specific technical things in my workplace that have words in the small group that cares about them.
They won’t find their way into dictionaries, but they are meaningful and useful. Some words like that have leaked into popular speech; my work isn’t the sort to have its gone grown words spread.
(My phone dislikes me pluralising “cares”. I presume it was taught in America)
Yeah, basically if you say something and someone understands it you’ve successfully communicated. Dictionaries are always lagging behind popular usage.
In your phrase “group that cares”, cares is 3rd person singular. There’s no reason for a program to ever flag that as a spelling mistake so I’m not sure what’s going on with that.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
There’s literally one in the topic of this post. And don’t tell me you haven’t dealt with crazy randos on Reddit that rake the same stance
flerp@lemm.ee 11 months ago
You got trolled bro
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
I’ve seen descriptivists take the position that if enough people use a made up word it counts as communication, but the only people I’ve ever seen saying “well I’m gonna call a tree a xopo instead” are prescriptivists who don’t understand descriptivism.
psud@aussie.zone 11 months ago
There are so many specific technical things in my workplace that have words in the small group that cares about them.
They won’t find their way into dictionaries, but they are meaningful and useful. Some words like that have leaked into popular speech; my work isn’t the sort to have its gone grown words spread.
(My phone dislikes me pluralising “cares”. I presume it was taught in America)
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
Yeah, basically if you say something and someone understands it you’ve successfully communicated. Dictionaries are always lagging behind popular usage.
In your phrase “group that cares”, cares is 3rd person singular. There’s no reason for a program to ever flag that as a spelling mistake so I’m not sure what’s going on with that.