Summary Of A Dictionary Of Modern American Usage By David Wallace

David Foster Wallace’s essay, “Authority and American Usage” is essentially a book review of lexicographer Bryan A. Garner’s Dictionary of Modern American Usage. However, Wallace takes his review further than just an analysis of the dictionary, but rather the necessity of usage rules in our society. Wallace sums up his argument on pages 393-394, writing:

Author Bryan A. Garner, in his article “Making Peace in the Language Wars” (published in Garner’s Modern American Usage 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, 2009), seeks to negotiate a cease-fire between two fighting countries, the prescriptivists and the descriptivists, by dispelling myths about each of their camps. First and foremost, Garner outlines the war is happening between the lines of our favorite novels and poetry, and he describes what each camp stands for. Prescriptivists desire to instruct the world around them on how to use the language by enforcing, or at the very least informing the general public about the rules of grammar. They are sometimes described as conservative and are very concerned

“Authority and American Usage” written by David Foster Wallace, poses an argument about the English language, and the different beliefs of its usage. This essay was written in defense of Bryan A. Garner’s, A Dictionary of Modern American Usage. His argument in “Authority and American Usage” is the difference the between prescriptivism perception and the descriptivism perception (Linguistic terms that could easily be made into smaller, more understandable words for people like me). Since the beginning of time, language has evolved. From biblical times, to Shakespearean times, to present day; the English language has been continuously changing since it’s birth and has no intentions on stopping.

George Orwell, in an essay from Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays titled “Politics and the English Language” (1950), argues that the English language, through a cyclical process of sloven language and foolish thought, has become “ugly and inaccurate.” He supports his argument by using expert opinion, metaphors, and historical context. Orwell’s purpose is to demonstrate the debasement of the English language in order to prompt writers to make a conscious change in their writing . He adopts an informal tone (“Look back throughout this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against”) for writers in a time of political turnover and rising superpowers.

George Orwell’s essay, Politics and the English Language, first published in 1946, talks about some “bad habits”, which have driven the English language in the wrong direction, that is, away from communicating ideas. In his essay he quotes five passages, each from a different author, which embody the faults he is talking about. He lists dying metaphors, operators, pretentious diction, and meaningless words as things to look out for in your own writing and the writing of others (593-595). He talks about political uses of the English language. Our language has become ugly and the ugliness impedes upon communication. Ugly uses of language have been reinforced and passed down in the population “even among people who should and do know

In George Orwell’s essay, “Politics And The English Language” Orwell discusses how the English language is changing negatively. His purpose is to show how modern writers, especially in politics, has become bogged down with the poor use of language. Orwell does this by using examples, critiques, and inductive reasoning. The author also has a serious tone that shows what he is talking about is very important to him and should be to his audience.

This book was revolutionary not only because it sought to "Americanize" the classroom, but because of the tone of the book. Most previous grammars were prescriptive, meaning that they informed the student how the words should be spoken or spelled. The "Blue-Backed Speller," on the other hand, was a descriptive work, meaning that it merely showed how words were actually used and pronounced by real speakers of the language (Millward 245).

How does our generation define what it means to be “American”? Being in America gives us the freedom to become who we want to be and, to do what we want to do. We are using technology to get places or to make a point. We want to support things we don’t know anything about. For example, Black Lives Matter. I’m not saying I know everything about it but I know enough. So one day as I was scrolling through Facebook I came across a post. The post was about a 9/11 “Never Forget” picture. A teen one or two older than me had said something along the lines of “When is our never forget day?” along with the hashtag “#Blacklivesmatter”. I got pretty upset by that. Not to mention it was said on 9/11. I was thinking about how they have a whole month to

Domestic Manners of Americans is one of the most hard-hitting, successful novels written by Frances Trollope, displaying themes scattered throughout the book about the United States as seen from a different perspective, from the eyes of a tourist. Frances Trollope resides from England, and in 1827 she made the decision to embark on a journey to America, to see if it really was the land of opportunity. She left with her three children and set off leaving her normal life, and her husband, behind her. What she hoped to find in America was a new life, a new experience, and what she found was a country that was struggling to see the incredible number of problems it held. Slavery, social injustice toward women, and the misuse of religion are all addressed in the novel by Frances Trollope, and she refrains from censoring herself to make sure that it is evident that the United States is not the ‘Land of the Free’ that Americans think it is.

When Beringer discusses that images, metaphors, and symbols serve to relate thought from action, it means that we use those attributes to decipher deeper significance in text than the actual literal meaning. If a reader or researcher were to miss or not understand a symbol, metaphor, or image, they would not have the full scope of the materials they were reading. Not everyone understands every culture’s images, symbols, or metaphors since those attributes tend to be culture-specific. A person living in 12th century Venice would not understand the symbolism of the American frontiersman and log cabin just as not all Americans know the symbolism of the Lion of Saint Mark that appears with a sword and book that is closed or opened. It is imperative

During the early 1900’s, The United States government was ruled by white men that have captivated the American patriotism. The patriotism of the American society was greatly enchanted by the white superiors wanting to establish a strong American values and culture. The era of the time gave little hopes and dreams of living in a land that its purpose was to give the opportunities to all newcomers. However it was a different scenario among the Mexican American community. The Mexican communities within the United States are force to adapt to a new tradition due to the defeat of Mexican-American War. The Mexican government efforts to persuade its people to leave the United States were no effect because of their disloyalties to its government. From here on the Mexican-American community in the United States will decide its own self recognition of identity.

George Orwell states that, “our civilization is decadent and our language…must inevitably share in the general collapse” (Orwell 2000, 1), when he argues for prescriptivism (though toned down from what was taught and accepted in his day). While Garner posits that, “describers, meanwhile, remind us that linguistic change is a fact of life – and conclude that it’s therefore not worth opposing” (Garner, Making Peace in the Language Wars 2008, 272). When David Foster Wallace discusses descriptivism, he makes a historical reference to, “Philip Gove’s now classic introduction to Webster’s Third [which] outlines this type of Descriptivism’s five basic edicts: ‘1 – Language changes constantly; 2 – change is normal; 3 – spoken language is the language; 4 – correctness rests upon usage; 5 – All usage is relative.’” (Wallace 2005, 83). Wallace himself argues against most of these edicts, proving himself to uphold his snootitude. Bryan A. Garner creates a list similar to that of Gove’s, while addressing the argument that “learning grammar may seem like an exercise in pedantry,” which is a point argued by many descriptivists:

Throughout the article Gideon Burton uses colloquial diction to put himself at the reader’s level. “Holy trapped in old school”, is a prime example of the many uses of colloquial diction that he has woven in and out of the pages of his article (47). He uses this to have more of an effect on the expected audience. He knows that the young college kids do not want to read ten pages of a verbose professor ranting about how he believes that the internet is needed in college. He would have a limited audience without the diction that he uses. This creates a bond between Gideon and the audience. His use of diction automatically helps him to

Perscriptive and Descriptive Language Use An essay or paper on Perscriptive and Descriptive Language Use. This research takes the form of an informative essay on the subject

Specialists in descriptive grammar (linguists) examine the principles and patterns that underlie the use of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. In contrast, prescriptive