Is "decider" a real word?

[David]

Originally Posted by SuzeQuze

Yeah, "descriptivist". WTH?

In language matters, "descriptive" (or "descriptivist") refers to scientific linguistics: observing & analyzing facts of speech & writing as they occur, without passing value judgments of correctness or fitness or desirability on those usages. "Prescriptive" (or "prescriptivist") refers to making such judgments about usages: prescribing normative rules for a language instead of simply describing how language is used.

When you get usage guidance or grammar advice from a guide or dictionary, you are getting prescriptive guidance. But ever since Webster's Third dictionary in 1961, that particular family of dictionaries has adopted a descriptive approach to its dictionaries: to report how language is used instead of to guide usage.

But the usage screwup I was thinking of in my post:

If you want reliable & accurate usage guidance online, avoid Merriam-Webster dictionaries (widely known & proud of their descriptivist approach to usage) & use instead the American Heritage Dictionary.

was the example of something called zeugma. When I said, "widely known & proud of ..." that was an example of an error called zeugma (you pronounce it "zoog-muh"). Zeugma is a figure of speech in which one word is forced to serve a role in two constructions (often by ellipsis), & that forcing is generally ungrammatical. You can see in my example that "widely known" & "proud of" both qualify the noun phrase "their descriptivist approach to usage." But the problem is that, while "proud of" is correct because it contains the correct preposition, "widely known" doesn't contain its own preposition--you are meant to join it ("zeugma" means "joining" or "yoking together") to the only explicit preposition in the phrase (which is "of"). However, something isn't said to be "widely known of"; to be correct, it should be "widely known for."

So I should have written: "If you want reliable & accurate usage guidance online, avoid Merriam-Webster dictionaries (widely known FOR & proud of their descriptivist approach to usage) & use instead the American Heritage Dictionary."

I think it sounds more complicated than it really is. But just think of the words in your sentence & how they relate to words & phrases that both precede & follow them. Zeugma isn't always incorrect, but it generally is.