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Comment by mattnewton | Hacker News Reader

That is how words work, they evolve as the consensus pronunciation evolves, they do not stay forever static.

This gives us an easy solution to make everyone happy though! We gust have to change "graphics" to be pronounced as "jraphics"

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Your argument is descriptivist, whereas theirs is prescriptivist.

And the former is right, whereas the latter is only present in academic discussions of use of language.

If someone has a regular-looking name yet tells you their name is pronounced differently (and knows that it is irregular), would you say their name the way they want you to, or would you insist on saying it the regular way?

I’d say their name the way they wanted to, because I’m not an asshole. But I don’t think that’s as much of a contradiction as you think it is. It’s a great example of how language evolves.

It's an example of prescription in language. Correcting someone's spelling/grammar is another.

Whether to prescribe language or not is somewhat arbitrary at times and is determined culturally, so I don't think the argument above can be resolved.

I know that was your point and I said I knew it in my response. But it’s not prescriptivism. It’s proscribed, and that’s different. Accepting that someone’s name is linguistically different than the rules you expect it to follow is both not being an asshole and descriptivism in practice. The fact that it’s proscribed is just a testament that it’s important to the person who prompted you to accept that particular language evolution.

So it seems you are saying it only makes sense to describe prescriptivism as explicitly calling for conformity to an existing norm.

There seem to be plenty of people who will argue to conserve grammar/spelling/semantics etc. I can't say their work is unfruitful, yet it does seem to be the case that language follows the habits of the majority.

Its a name not a regular word.

It's an acronym really, where the first word of the acronym is "graphics" :)

Does 'scuba' rhyme with 'rubber'?

Since someone seems to need an explanation, 'scuba' stands for 'self-contained underwater breathing apparatus'.

The pronunciation of names also changes over time, and across locations.

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