Well, it was a hasty generalization on my part. Flawed descriptivism, not prescriptivism. But you’re losing sight of the issue, even as you refute an unsound argument. In the particular case—check it out—Grognor resolved the ambiguity in favor of the universal quantifier. This would be uncharitable in the general case, but in context it’s—as I said—a ridiculous argument. I stretched for an abstract argument to establish the ridiculousness, and I produced a specious argument. But the fact is that it was Grognor who had accused Loosemore of “abuse of language,” on the tacit ground that the universal quantifier is automatically implied. There was the original prescriptivism.
Well, it was a hasty generalization on my part. Flawed descriptivism, not prescriptivism. But you’re losing sight of the issue, even as you refute an unsound argument. In the particular case—check it out—Grognor resolved the ambiguity in favor of the universal quantifier. This would be uncharitable in the general case, but in context it’s—as I said—a ridiculous argument. I stretched for an abstract argument to establish the ridiculousness, and I produced a specious argument. But the fact is that it was Grognor who had accused Loosemore of “abuse of language,” on the tacit ground that the universal quantifier is automatically implied. There was the original prescriptivism.