Ridding ourselves of the term "descriptivist". Is

M56   Fri Apr 21, 2006 5:47 pm GMT
Lohn Lawler, linguist, replies to an accusation of being a descriptivist.

"If you want a label that I'll accept, try linguist. Linguistics is a science, and of course scientists must describe the objects of their study; again, nothing new. There are lots of other things we do, too; though describing phenomena as completely and accurately as possible is very important. It turns out in linguistics, as it does in all sciences, that you have to observe very carefully, and report what you find very, very carefully, if you want to learn anything you didn't already know. Or thought you knew. So in that sense I'm a (lowercase) "descriptivist", like any other scientist, though the word is not one I have any use for. >

Go, John, go!