is english.stackexchange normative or creative?

Question

is english.stackexchange normative or creative?

as with anything that evolves, english improves through a creative process that introduces new features and remains cohesive through a normative process that removes rarely used features. i realize that some questions specifically encourage neologisms, but outside those are you expected to provide answers for which you could (in theory) provide citations to existing works? similarly, when voting on answers, should i upvote answers that effectively describe to me an elegant way of communicating to a modern native english speaker the objective of the asker. or should i only upvote those that are already widely accepted as "proper english"?

for example, take my answer to this question: Single word that unambiguously describes the product of folding i used a word "topology" in a way that seemed intuitive to me as a native english speaker. it was pointed out that topology has historically been used (in the context of mathematics) to describe an algorithm rather than an output. however, i felt that the perhaps somewhat novel usage would be clear in the context of the question (a math paper on folding). regardless of the quality of my answer, my question is about the validity of an answer that is novel usage. in the context of a question that does not invite such answers, can new words and new grammar be legitimately proposed?

perhaps another way of asking this question is to say: "is english.stackexchange about communicating effectively within the bounds of english? or is it about communicating effectively with people who understand english?"

this is a closely related question about the type of community we are trying to be/attract: How can we promote this site? it occurs to me, that for many users, perhaps the site is not about communicating effectively at all. as answers to the other question suggest, the site may appeal most to linguists who think all native speaker usage is "right" or "mavens" who have a narrow and pedantic focus on widely accepted grammar and word definitions.

alternatively, is there a way to efficiently flag questions and/or answers as either creative or normative?

Answer 1

In your terminology, the community at ELU is almost entirely normative, meaning answering according to existing rules and variations (more on that in a second).

The community has explicitly noted that they should mostly avoid things like neologisms or changes to grammar rules that are proposed to be better (by some criteria) and therefore is not (in general,- there are infrequent exceptions to everything) creative. The SE (not just ELU) principles of having mostly answerable non-discussion questions directs us away from making up things or discussing the viability of a change in some rule (these are much too opinion based and or broad, two close reasons).

As to 'normative', I am putting prescriptivism and descriptivism together here, because they both are rule based.

Prescriptivists tend to hold that there is one correct grammar and style for speaking and writing. It is often the province of professional writers and educators.

Descriptivists tend to record rules on what people actually do (which is often at odds with the 'single' approved style/grammar). They still have the concept of a language mistake, it's just more lenient than a prescriptivist.

Descriptivist is a somewhat derogatory term that prescriptivists give to those people who insist on poor, 'anything goes' English, allowing profanity and textspeak in serious publications like Merriam-Webster, or allowing '10 items or less' at grocery signs.

Prescriptivist is a somewhat derogatory term that descriptvists give to those people who insist on grammar rules that are inauthentic and made up out of some bizarre pedagogy (split infinitive, no prepositions at the ends of sentences) or double negative (used in informal or varieties of English).

No one will say that prepositions come after the noun, or that "I Liking the two dog" is how to say it.

In some sense, in answers, we are all prescriptivists here, trying to tell people what is right, just that descriptivists will allow more variation, and describe differences between register and dialect. "I'm going to hospital" is totally wrong in American English, but totally right in British English. "I ain't going" is not something you should be writing in a newspaper article, but a foreign learner of English will have to know how to understand and say that (and the rules that govern it) to get by in certain subcultures of English speakers.

Answer 2

suppose that for unexplained (but possibly mystical) reasons of my own i decide to capitalize every Seventeenth word in my answer to this question. on the one hand, such a decision seems difficult To characterize as "normative" since it isn't something most people do, and since it isn't calculated to Make what i write easier for readers to comprehend. but on the other hand, if i enforce It consistently, it clearly qualifies as a rule (albeit an arbitrary one) regularly applied and rigorously enforced Across the length of my answer, which can be viewed as its own miniature universe obedient to The physics i choose to impose on it. surely such predictable regularity is the very essence of "Normative."

at the same time, since i thought of this rule myself, with little or no encouragement Or precedent from others, it indisputably qualifies as a creative approach, though "creative" seems an odd label To attach to an innovation that, once instituted, requires nothing more than careful counting. but that's the Contradiction here, isn't it? to be meaningful to others, words, sentences, punctuation, capitalization, and myriad other aspects Of written language must be normalized at some level. otherwise readers are forced to deal with the Worst form of humpty-dumptyism—the form in which the humpty-dumpty figure doesn't bother to define glory because, After all, it, like any other word, means whatever he wants it to. very creative is mr. Dumpty.

still, to answer questions creatively, we must do more than consistently apply a limited set of Boolean operators. we must deal in nuance and impression and inventive example. and we do, at times. I think that the idea that "normative" and "creative" pull in opposite directions is misleading and ultimately Incorrect. it may be that for pascal, operating in an existential universe of big questions demanding solution, Chopping the methodology of answers into esprit de géométrie and esprit de finesse made a certain amount Of sense—but that, i think, is because he was trying to understand all solution space as Fundamentally mathematical or at least logical. here at el&u, prospective answerers are under no such pressure or Obligation.

so i would say that the primary goal that answerers at this site seek to achieve Is to supply answers that cover the question fairly and (if possible) thoroughly in a way that Both the original question asker and subsequent readers can understand—which calls for a combination of the Normative (orderly argument and logical clarity) and the creative (constructing apt examples and respecting the imprecision of Language). it isn't an either or situation. oh and as for the seventeen thing—it's about the Locusts.