descriptivism is a weird thing because yes words are fake, fluid, & mushy - but it's undeniable that people voluntarily spend tons of energy defending particular meanings for them
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some kind of memetic defense that we get hypnotized into participating in, and maybe that's good!
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My crackpot theory is that we have some kind of Dunbar number for important words, and it's very low, probably <100. So you fight for your preferred definition to become the default; it's some kind of semantic battle where Genericide is the goal.
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yes I definitely think it’s part of defending some kind of clean, workable model of the world - dunbar number good analogy
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rip banana obviously been cordycepted to say that
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what if that's good
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It is. Two things can be true simultaneously: 1) Words have only conventional meanings. 2) It’s important to have largely consistent conventions so we can talk to each other legibly, and messing with definitions to win arguments is a tragedy of the commons.
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There is only one truth and that truth is cube
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descriptivism is just prescriptivism for weaklings
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