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To: python-list@python.org
From: Robert Kern <robert.kern@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Got a Doubt ! Wanting for your Help ! Plz make it ASAP !
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 14:00:27 +0000
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On 2013-11-27 13:29, rusi wrote:
> On Wednesday, November 27, 2013 6:27:52 PM UTC+5:30, Robert Kern wrote:
>> On 2013-11-27 08:16, Antoon Pardon wrote:
>>> Op 26-11-13 22:42, Tim Delaney schreef:
>>>> On 27 November 2013 03:57, Antoon Pardon  wrote:
>>>>       So I can now ask my questions in dutch and expect others to try and
>>>>       understand me instead of me asking them in english? Or can I use
>>>>       literal translations of dutch idioms even if I suspect that such
>>>>       a literal translation could be misunderstood and even be insulting?
>>>> 1. No, because this is stated to be an English-speaking list/newsgroup.
>>>> It just doesn't specify what dialect of English.
>>> Well so much for this group being an international group with only one
>>> language allowed.
>>> However that second sentence doesn't make much sense to me. Modern
>>> languages contain a subset that is called the standard language.
>
>> Linguists would disagree.
>
> Linguists disagree a lot amongst themselves:
>
> Early 20th century there was Fowler and his followers -- unabashedly
> laying down the law on what is right and not.  Then there were his
> opponents (French school I think, not sure what they were called --
> poststructuralists maybe??) who said language was defined by usage and
> not the other way.  Until someone (Fowlerite?) pointed out that those
> anti-Fowlerites seemingly objectively described all the dialects but
> they themselves stuck to pristine Queen's English.
>
> So like in society, all dialects are equal and some are more equal!

Henry Fowler? To my knowledge, he was a dictionary-maker, not a linguist. To be 
fair, back then, the field of linguistics was not terribly well established, so 
he might have qualified for the title at the time. However, linguistics has 
learned a lot and moved on since then. You would be seriously hard-pressed to 
find a prescriptivist linguist these days.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
  that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
  an underlying truth."
   -- Umberto Eco