Re: descriptive vs. prescriptive

Subject: Re: descriptive vs. prescriptive
From: Loren Castro <lfc -at- SOL -dot- CHINALAKE -dot- NAVY -dot- MIL>
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 14:21:23 -0700

Connie Winch asks for thoughts:

> When I was a Professional Writing student (only a few years ago),
> my professor made a point that PREscriptive dictionaries, including
> the one my parents had given me as a gift - American Heritage
> (2nd College Edition), were better than DEscriptive dictionaries.
> Which is really another way of saying that a dictionary
> should be a determiner of correct language, not that current
> usage should be the determiner of dictionary content.

> Your thoughts?

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That's the only way it can work for technical writing.

lfc -at- sol -dot- chinalake -dot- navy -dot- mil


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