That would be true if such dictionary makers polled people about what they
thought words meant. But they do not, at least not according to what I've
read. They see how words are used, as an aspect of human behavior. So, it's
not whether people believe a word is pronounced a certain way (Would you
want to poll Bostonians on how they think Texans "mispronounce" words?), but
how they actually do pronounce them, even if it is a noticeable deviation
from "broadcast standard" (the dialect popularized by news broadcasts).
Descriptive lexicographers describe this part of human behavior; they are
not describing beliefs, but behaviors. And so are more like chemists
describing the actual behaviors of chemicals.

Greg Stigers
http://www.cgiusa.com
If it weren't for dictionary.com,
I'm not sure I would be using any dictionary at all.

Wirt Atmar wrote:
> "This is so stupid it practically drools. An "authoritative"
> physics text
> presents the results of physicists' observations and
> physicists' theories
> about those observations. If a physics textbook operated on
> Descriptivist
> principles, the fact that some Americans believe that
> electricity flows
> better downhill (based on the observed fact that power lines
> tend to run high
> above the homes they serve) would require the Electricity Flows Better
> Downhill Theory to be included as a "valid" theory in the
> textbook--just as,
> for Dr. Fries, if some Americans use infer for imply, the use
> becomes an ipso
> facto "valid" part of the language. Structural linguists like
> Gove and Fries
> are not, finally, scientists but census-takers who happen to
> misconstrue the
> importance of "observed facts." It isn't scientific phenomena they're
> tabulating but rather a set of human behaviors, and a lot of
> human behaviors
> are--to be blunt--moronic. Try, for instance, to imagine an
> "authoritative"
> ethics textbook whose principles were based on what most
> people actually do."
>
> Wirt Atmar
>
> * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
> * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *