History of Pronouns: Home

Prescriptive Grammar

• Prescriptivism: “the widespread belief that there is one and only one correct way of using the language”
• “The recommendation that one variant should be used rather than another is generally motivated not by logic, but by various social considerations: the preferred variant is usually that favored by influential persons and groups.”
• “the linguistic value judgments characteristic of contemporary prescriptivism are, in effect, social comments on speakers, rather than valid metalinguistic statements.”

Source:

Milroy, L., & Milroy, J. (2003). Prescriptive Grammar. In International Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Oxford University Press. 

Sources:

Balhorn, Mark. "The Rise of Epicene They." Journal of English Linguistics 32.2 (2004): 79-104.

Metcalf, Allan. (2019). "My Pronoun, ’tis of Thee: Thou Art Lost and Gone Forever." Chapter 8 in The Life of Guy: Guy Fawkes, the Gunpowder Plot, and the Unlikely History of an Indispensable Word. Oxford University Press.

Zimman, Lal. (2016, August 26). "Pronouns Have Always Been Political: Socially-Motivated Change in Our Pronoun System Is Nothing New." Trans Talk blog.

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