Grammar Nazi: A Look at Prescriptivism and Language Policing

When you have a common standard, helps to crystalize meaning, so you don't have to spend hours figuring out "what" this means.

When you has commune standard , ite elps to ondèrsetand miningue, so yoo donte ave to sependa hourza figurine awout what disse minns

This is one of the lowest-value articles I've seen linked on HN. It's a weak tea defence of descriptivism and a failed attack on prescriptivism. The only substantive points made, albeit without evidence, are that prescriptivism 'stifles creative expression' and 'gives language an elitist veneer'. I'm not sure what the latter is supposed to mean or why it would be wrong - that's not explained. The former is clearly false; constraints typically enhance creative expression. Or perhaps we are supposed to believe the Aeneid would have been better not written in hexameters but free verse?

English is, obviously, a widely spoken language with a long, dynamic history and a large number of dialects, argots, cants, jargons, and accents. Linguists studying the differences between, say, the way people of Indian heritage in Solihull and in Delhi create and understand English can have a field day.

To deny that some of those dialects count as 'professional, educated English' and to deny that 'professional, educated English' has some quite strict rules for disambiguating itself from other dialects of English is not descriptivism - it's simply anti-intellectual activism.

If the author is so concerned that people shouldn't be condescending or rude why is he flinging insults like 'Grammar Nazi'? Pillock.