Like was it a meaningful debate or a flat out flame war? And what was the main theme you were arguing over?

        • TheOrcWhoWrites@lemmy.worldOP
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          3 days ago

          What sparked my initial thought to post this question was an argument about something very trivial. It was grammar. So I was wondering what other people had argued about and someone wouldn’t let them be right because this person always had a rebuttle. What a total troll? Yet, I had verified evidence. Very trivial thing.

          • AskewLord@piefed.social
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            2 days ago

            what about grammar. grammar debates fall into prescriptive vs descriptive camps, usually with the former thinking society will collapse if we don’t rigidly standardize language use, and the latter laughing at linguistic changes and doing a lot of comparitive analysis.

            What i find annoying is that prescriptive don’t really understand the concept of registers of a language. They seem to think there is only one legitimate register and all others are bad/wrong/false or something. Even if they, pragmatically, switch registers all the time without realizing it. They mostly nitpick the language at the collegiate formal level that is used among the professional classes.