Prescriptive Rules and their Capacity to Change the Language
Nowadays, more than eight thousand million people coexist on Earth and there are around
seven thousand living languages in the world, imagine what would happen if everyone
wanted to express themselves in the absence of rules. Prescriptive rules express a preference
for one structure usage or linguistic item over another, and about how someone has decided
the language should be spoken. Based on that, some critics argue that prescriptivism does not
let language evolve. Still, prescriptive rules can also be seen as a significant element in order
to enhance creativity and innovation in our lexicon and writing structures.
Humans need to socialize with other humans, which is why communication is essential in
order to express different experiences they want to communicate with their own words, but
sometimes it is not properly done. Language requires rules to function as a communication
tool and in the absence of prescriptive rules, it may prove to be exceedingly challenging to
maintain intelligible communication between diverse cultures and different contexts.
Moreover, grammar is constantly evolving, for instance, there has been an addition of new
words such as bitcoin, selfie, twerk and so on into dictionaries (O'Grady, 1987, 9). Also, there
is great freedom to innovate in the formation of verbs, an example would be the word mop,
you can say clean the floor with a mop or mop the floor (O'Grady, 1987, 3).
Prescriptive rules also play a role in formal communication, such as academic and
professional writing. They establish a common ground for clarity and precision in written
language. The language that writers use in novels or poems has changed through the centuries
because prescriptive rules change according to how speakers talk. Trying to read a very old
book, for example, any Shakespeare book, may cause a struggle due to some structures or
Nowadays, more than eight thousand million people coexist on Earth and there are around
seven thousand living languages in the world, imagine what would happen if everyone
wanted to express themselves in the absence of rules. Prescriptive rules express a preference
for one structure usage or linguistic item over another, and about how someone has decided
the language should be spoken. Based on that, some critics argue that prescriptivism does not
let language evolve. Still, prescriptive rules can also be seen as a significant element in order
to enhance creativity and innovation in our lexicon and writing structures.
Humans need to socialize with other humans, which is why communication is essential in
order to express different experiences they want to communicate with their own words, but
sometimes it is not properly done. Language requires rules to function as a communication
tool and in the absence of prescriptive rules, it may prove to be exceedingly challenging to
maintain intelligible communication between diverse cultures and different contexts.
Moreover, grammar is constantly evolving, for instance, there has been an addition of new
words such as bitcoin, selfie, twerk and so on into dictionaries (O'Grady, 1987, 9). Also, there
is great freedom to innovate in the formation of verbs, an example would be the word mop,
you can say clean the floor with a mop or mop the floor (O'Grady, 1987, 3).
Prescriptive rules also play a role in formal communication, such as academic and
professional writing. They establish a common ground for clarity and precision in written
language. The language that writers use in novels or poems has changed through the centuries
because prescriptive rules change according to how speakers talk. Trying to read a very old
book, for example, any Shakespeare book, may cause a struggle due to some structures or
