A Goodreads user
asked
Brent Weeks:
Why do you keep using the (recent parlance) phrase 'on accident' throughout The Bliding Knife, rather than the more usual and far lass infuriating 'by accident'? I've found myself annoyed by the phrase several times reading this book to the point where it takes me out of the world you've written...
Brent Weeks
In linguistic terms, I'm a descriptivist rather than a prescriptivist... with the caveat that when a prescriptivist usage communicates some meaning that the descriptivist usage does not, I opt for the former.
Which is to say, I think language belongs to all people, and the richness of it is in how people actually use it, not in the rules academia concocts for it. Try out MIT's Steven Pinker "The Language Instinct" if you want an academic critique of academics critiquing how people actually use language.
Which is to say, I think language belongs to all people, and the richness of it is in how people actually use it, not in the rules academia concocts for it. Try out MIT's Steven Pinker "The Language Instinct" if you want an academic critique of academics critiquing how people actually use language.
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