Commentary: For the Love of English, Stop Changing Definitions

There has long been a debate in linguistics about how to approach language and how language should be used by native speakers. The two traditional schools of thought are prescriptivists and descriptivists. The former are concerned with establishing norms for language and formulating rules and proper ways of using said language. On the other hand, the latter believe that a given language should be understood by how it is used, without establishing certain rules and parameters.

It seems that the English language today, at least in America, is in the throes of taking the descriptivist position to the extreme. We are now seeing a concerted effort to overturn the traditional definitions of words and terms in order to push certain political and social agendas.

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Commentary: The Woke Revolution Is Erasing the Past

Students of English and history are going the way of the dodo bird.

During just the last decade, their numbers at colleges and universities have dropped by a third – and humanities enrollment is down by 17%, Nathan Heller reports in his recent New Yorker article, “The End of the English Major.”

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Commentary: One-Size-Fits-All Education Doesn’t Work Well, but Diversity Advocates Are Hitting the Accelerator

There’s a world of difference in the abilities of elementary school students in the Trotwood-Madison City School District, outside Dayton, Ohio. Some low-performing fifth graders are only capable of reading first-grade picture books with basic words like dog and cat, says Angie Fugate, a district specialist focusing on gifted education. In the same classrooms, the aces read at a sixth-grade level, devouring thick novels that adults also enjoy, including the Harry Potter series.  

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