Descriptivism and Prescriptivism
or
How to be Correcter in Languaging


Descriptivism is the art of reporting on how language is used, often with the subtext that the way that language is used is the way you should use it.

Prescriptivism is the art of telling people how to use language, because there are rules in place, dammit!

Obviously, there is a correct solution to this debate; allow me to monologue upon the matter.

Words are good and useful tools, and sometimes you need new tools, or to use tools in new ways. Sometimes you need a new word for a new idea, like 'quark', and sometimes you need a new word to give a new tone to an old idea, like 'cromulent'. These are fine. These are even fine in cases like hybrid words ('automobile', 'sociology'), portmanteau words ('brunch', 'ginormous'), and clumsily stolen words from other languages (all of English). Somewhat dubious but also probably okay are the use of old words for something new, like 'car' coming to mean 'automobile' or 'phone' coming to mean 'hand computer'.

But, counterpoint, words are good and useful tools, and you shouldn't use a saw to do a hammer's job; it makes the saw less effective at its primary purpose. Words that might be ambiguous in many contexts ('imply', 'literally', 'beg the question') should stick with their more precise meanings, and drop the warm fuzzy "language as pretty stickers" usages.

The difficulty arises in maintaining language as a tool to communicate between people, rather than just a tool to talk to yourself. New words and new usages should add something to the communicative toolbox, not take meaning away. That which is added may be hard to see at first; 'car' is better than 'automobile' only in that it is short, but short is valuable. Unfortunately, sometimes what is added is just rhetoric flourishes, which is a great reason for inventing new words (e.g., 'fantabulous') and a terrible reason for setting loose floating signifiers (e.g., 'communism', 'fascism', 'justice', and most words used by pundits and politicians).

When in doubt, make a new tool that does the job right, and never pick a word that feels right because it fits the pattern of your speech -- not unless you're writing a song, or messing up a poem.

I'm not really sure why I'm writing this, I guess I feel like I have to. If not here, somewhere. I hate journals, knowing that at least someone will read this really motivates me to actually write. It's not intended for anyone. It's embarrassing. Self reflection is just cheap catharsis, it's like an exorcism, which I know sounds so pretentious, but, whatever.

I feel pretty bad tonight. I just sit at my desk for hours, trying not to think about anything at all, marinating in hatred for my circumstance. I can't sleep, I can never sleep, I'm awake and awake and awake, and I can't sleep, and I feel sick and slow and fried from never sleeping. I don't have a job, I can barely handle one class. My self esteem is not very high. A few years ago I was drowning in catholic guilt, deep resentment for the fact I am flawed to the point that I hated myself, and I regurgitated a lot of bullshit onto this website, most of which I've nuked.

I haven't been the same since I took all those pills in February, but I go back and forth about it. I didn't do it because I felt hopeless. I did it because I just felt sick and tired of my situation and I really don't want to continue go through the suffering and pain of waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for the right medication. I'm just so sick of it. I'm sick of everything and myself and everyone and being alive. I just want it all to end. And I deeply resent the fact that I believe the afterlife exists, because I want more than anything to just flicker into nothing. For a solid month after I did it, nothing felt real. Everything felt transient, impermanent, almost dreamlike. Maybe it was the drug in my system, maybe it was the shock of knowing I could have died. My memory has been awful and I think it's the result of the overdose. I forget conversations, names, I've forgotten a lot of memories. People say "do you remember when we/you ____?" and I'm just like. No. I'm sorry, I don't. But I can't figure out if it was an act of strength or weakness. Maybe it's neither, maybe it's cowardice, maybe it's courage, if anything I was weak for failing.

It's kind of morbid, but I have a very strong desire to be the victim of violence. I don't know why I crave this, and I think if it happened I would hate it, but I passively fantasize about it and wonder what's wrong with me as I do. I think about how it would feel to get punched in the nose. Blood in my mouth, blood spilling into my eyes. Kicked in the ribs, beat into the pavement. Go into a coma, dimly aware of my own existence, just sleeping and sleeping and sleeping, dreamlessly, for days, weeks, months, until my parents pull the plug. Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to have a gun in my throat. But I hate myself for even thinking about it because I know it's wrong and weird and probably a little scary.

I had a dream about a highschool friend of mine. I woke up and the first notification on my phone was that he had posted to his snapchat story. I took it as a sign from god or the universe or whatever that I should see about catching up or reconnecting. I sent him a message asking what he's been up to these days, we exchanged polite conversation, but he seemed rather uninterested in talking or catching up, trying to politely end the conversation whenever he could. I miss a lot of my friends from those days, but maybe it's better they don't talk to me, because I hate who I was back then. And like yeah, it was like 7 years ago, and nobody's a good person at that age, but still.

I miss feeling like my whole life was ahead of me, like it could only get better, like I had a future. I don't know if it will ever get better. Constantly I think about how hopeless I feel but I don't know how to make it better.

Maybe I should talk about Lydia here. I've never really spoken about it to anyone spare my two closest friends. I did mention bits and pieces, I think I used aliases, but nobody's going to be able to connect anything I say to her anyway. So, from the ages of 15 to 18 my best friend was Lydia. We did a lot together. We would do just a bunch of shit together; cafes, restaurants, parties, thrifting. I remember, my 17th birthday, we just sat on her bed and read poetry to each other. I was never romantically or sexually attracted to her. But when we were 18 she came up with the idea of getting married, since we liked each other so much. I was ready to do it. I was ready to move with her to whatever uni she went to, change my life so everything oriented around her. It was her idea, she asked me to marry her, we talked on the phone for hours just talking about what our wedding would be like. Eventually she kind of ignored me for a week and then she said "I don't want to get married right now, maybe sometime in the distant future." Which really sucked. I felt like I was going to puke and cry and puke more. I didn't puke, but I did cry. It hurt a lot. When she moved away she stopped responding to my texts and messages. After a year she messaged me and apologized, said she didn't like my sense of humor and that was the reason, and said she wanted to be my friend again. I still adored her, I still loved her more than anyone, but... I just... I don't know why I forgave her. Communicating feelings is the most baseline dignity I can imagine in any friendship. But then she did it again, I don't know why, and still hasn't messaged me. I gave up on messaging her, now it's been a bunch of years. I still cry about it if I think about it too much. She was the most perfect person I had ever met, I still adore her, and if she asked for forgiveness I would forgive her in a heartbeat. But it doesn't matter, the perception of her in my head never existed. She never loved me as much as I loved her, she is undoubtedly a completely different person now, I don't know why I still think about it. Maybe it's better this way, only god knows I guess.

Change of topic. The year is slipping away, pretty soon it will be gone. They're going by so fast. Nothing is new, nothing is solved, nothing is better. 

Not hitting my reading goal. Not hitting it. I've read five books this year. But I've bought like ten books. So many things on my reading list. I'm trying to get through commentaries of Euripides' Medea before I have to return them to the library. After that, maybe Borges, maybe Jung, maybe Nietzsche, maybe none of the above. I miss being able to read things expediently. Now it takes me months.

I think I might be a little attracted to someone, which is strange because I am very rarely sexually or romantically attracted to anyone at all. I hate it, it's so illogical to find someone pleasant for really no reason at all except the arbitrary whims of my reproductive instinct. In this case I think it is misfiring because he is a dude. I just have to compartmentalize. Take a deep breath and try not to entertain any gay thoughts I have. But my mind passively drifts to romantic thoughts and it's like... no. Please, no. I am heterosexual. Please, I am heterosexual. Please.

Right now I'm just trying to survive. Survive latin, survive not sleeping, survive feeling awful all the time. Just soldier through it all. Time will tell if I can do it.

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