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Comment by kranner | Hacker News Reader

My point was that it is hard to say when something is 'simply bad' in the sprawling and multifarious carnival that is the English language.

I vaguely recollect from reading the blog Language Hat that modern linguists sometimes decide which variant of a class (for instance, 'software' vs 'a software' vs 'softwares') is more correct by counting how many Google search results each variant returns. No doubt they need to filter this data in many ways, but it would seem that it is no longer possible to say 'X is correct, all else is not.'

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There are certain terms (like "a software") that are never used by people who's first language is English. IANAL (I am not a linguist), but I'd consider myself a "descriptivist" when it comes to defining a language. I think that a living language is defined by its usage by native speakers. Forms that are never used by native speakers can be defined as "incorrect". Of course, languages change (especially English), so those forms can and do become incorporated into the language over time. But, as English stands in 2010, "a software" is less correct than simply saying "software".

I guess by your argument and the prevalence of usage by native speakers, who's is correct as well.

I don't think he is saying native speakers never make mistakes though.

A better example might be people using if when they should be using whether.

"I think that a living language is defined by its usage by native speakers."

First, I think there are degrees of nativeness in language acquisition. Cutting out the entire class of strictly non-native speakers is a bit of an extreme step.

Second, what about differences in usage of the same language over two classes of native speaker?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_Eng... was once considered to be "incorrect" English.

Yeah it bugs me too. Then again, "I'll have a water" will fall out of my mouth sometimes.

There's nothing wrong with that. In that context, "a water" is the same as "a glass of water".

But that's different. Water is not something that is discretely counted typically, but glasses of water are.

Unless you're the Mad Hatter, you'll be ordering a (whole) glass and enough water to fill it. We collapse the "glass of" into epsilon because it's assumed in polite conversation the waiter won't be pouring the water into your open hands.

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