Just to confirm: you’re proposing that when linguists refuse to condemn non-standard language usage, that’s an expression of different cultural norms between the hard-science and soft-science communities regarding the use of boo-lights, rather than an expression of linguists not negatively valuing non-standard language usage?
Not quite—more like, what the linguists say is “an expression of linguists not negatively valuing non-standard language usage”, but what the non-linguists asked them and what they will think when they hear the answer is “an expression of different cultural norms between the hard-science and soft-science communities regarding the use of boo-lights” to some extent—but for some reason I don’t terribly like this way of putting it.
WRT the second quote… in what way do you dislike it? E.g., does it seem that I’ve factually misrepresented the position, or that I’ve framed it negatively, or...?
Just to confirm: you’re proposing that when linguists refuse to condemn non-standard language usage, that’s an expression of different cultural norms between the hard-science and soft-science communities regarding the use of boo-lights, rather than an expression of linguists not negatively valuing non-standard language usage?
Not quite—more like, what the linguists say is “an expression of linguists not negatively valuing non-standard language usage”, but what the non-linguists asked them and what they will think when they hear the answer is “an expression of different cultural norms between the hard-science and soft-science communities regarding the use of boo-lights” to some extent—but for some reason I don’t terribly like this way of putting it.
Ah, OK. Thanks for clarifying.
WRT the second quote… in what way do you dislike it? E.g., does it seem that I’ve factually misrepresented the position, or that I’ve framed it negatively, or...?
Weird… On reading it again it no longer sounds that bad to me, and I can’t quite remember why it did.
If you have any insights as to what caused either the initial reaction or its termination, I’m interested.
I think I might have been primed to think of the phrase “boo light” as a boo light. My inner Hofstadter is laughing.