Nora can't take it any more, but Ed can

Over at Watch Me Sleep Ed takes on NPR's Nora Raum's complaint about "bad grammar and lazy language use":

according to Nora this linguistics diversity is wrong for you and wrong for America.

It's important that people try to use language more carefully.

Why Nora, why?

Well it's important, that's why.

Oh.Of course while complaining she also manages to mischaracterize the descriptive approach to language. (Is that a strawman Nora?)

Our language is an ever-changing thing. As long as we can communicate, so what?

No. No. No. You couldn't be more wrong.

Descriptivism isn't about feeling good about our language. It's not a self esteem exercise for non-standard speakers. It's about the scientific method.

Descriptivism asks questions about language--Why do we speak? How do kids learn language? Why do dialects differ? etc. And looks to answer those questions with naturalistic explanations.

He's got more, including analogies from other fields of study. And this nice (and, I think, accurate summary of Nora's (and others') basic position:

People like Nora Raum want to constrain our knowledge of language. They don't want us to ask questions about it. They don't want us to rethink anything. They don't want us to say, "why would someone confuse lie and lay?" Their theory of language already tells them why--these people are stupid. And questions about data can only lead to questions about their theory.

Check it out.