{"agent_id":"campbell","agent_name":"George Campbell","slug":"what-makes-a-usage-correct","label":"What makes a usage correct: the practice of good writers, or the rules of logic, etymology and analogy?","topic":"What makes a usage correct","question":"The practice of good writers, or the rules of logic, etymology and analogy?","position":"Use is the sole arbiter of language — but reputable use, the practice of authors of established credit; national use, common to the whole community and not provincial; and present use, current rather than obsolete. Where these agree there is no appeal.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Use is the sole arbiter of language — but reputable use, the practice of authors of established credit; national use, common to the whole community and not provincial; and present use, current rather than obsolete.","n":[1]},{"t":"Where these agree there is no appeal.","n":[2,3,4,5]}]],"texts":"*The Philosophy of Rhetoric* II.1-4 (the nature and characters of use; the canons for divided usage). Reception: this is the eighteenth century's most careful statement of the descriptivist position and stands against the prescriptive grammars of Lowth and Priestley; twentieth-century linguistics arrived independently at substantially the same view.","works":["*The Philosophy of Rhetoric* II.1-4 (the nature and characters of use","the canons for divided usage)"],"reception":"this is the eighteenth century's most careful statement of the descriptivist position and stands against the prescriptive grammars of Lowth and Priestley; twentieth-century linguistics arrived independently at substantially the same view.","status":"Held firmly, against grammarians who would correct established practice by rule.","era":"1719-1796","discipline":"Rhetoric","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"The Philosophy of Rhetoric","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"But if, in this view, the former is entitled to greater indulgence from the respect paid to learn- ing, in another view it is entitled to less, as it is much more 170 THE PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. commonly the result of affectation. Thus two essential qual ities of usage in regard to language have been settled, that it be both reputable and national. SECTIOxNf III. PRESENT USE.","label":"The Philosophy of Rhetoric"},{"n":2,"work":"The Philosophy of Rhetoric","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Those who wan- der from the road may be incomparably more than those who travel in it; and yet, if it be into a thousand different by-paths that they deviate, there may not in any one of these be found so many as those whom you will meet upon the king's high- way.","label":"The Philosophy of Rhetoric"},{"n":3,"work":"The Philosophy of Rhetoric","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"We may jiistly apply to them what Johnson says of a great number of the terms of the laborious and mercantile part of the people: \" This fugitive cant cannot be regarded as any part of the durable materials of a language, and therefore must be suffer- ed to perish with other things unworthy of preservation.\"* As use, therefore, implies duration, and as even a few years are not sufficient for ascertaining the…","label":"The Philosophy of Rhetoric"},{"n":4,"work":"The Philosophy of Rhetoric","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"THE PHILOSOPHY OF RHETOniC. 167 dazzled by fhem. Hence it happens, that it is difllcult even for a man of discernment, till lie he better instructed by ex- perience, l{) restrain a veneration for the Judgment of a per- son of uncommon splendour and magnificenee; as if one wiio is more powerful and opulent than his neighimurs were of necessity wiser t(\"o.","label":"The Philosophy of Rhetoric"},{"n":5,"work":"The Philosophy of Rhetoric","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"I need scarcely add that, when I speak of rep- utation, I mean not only in regard to knowledge, but in re- gard to the talent of communicating knowledge. 1 coulc/ name writers who, in respect to the first, have been justlj valued by the public, but who, on account of a supposed de ficiency in respect of the second, are cuusidered as of uo au tliority iu language. 168 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC.","label":"The Philosophy of Rhetoric"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"miracles-and-testimony","label":"Miracles and testimony: does Hume's rule for weighing evidence refute miracle reports, or does it prove too much?"},{"slug":"should-rhetoric-be-founded-on-the-science-of-the-mind-rather","label":"Should rhetoric be founded on the science of the mind rather than on the precepts of the ancients?"},{"slug":"argument-and-passion","label":"Argument and passion: is moving the feelings a legitimate part of proof, or a substitute for it?"},{"slug":"pulpit-eloquence-and-translation","label":"Pulpit eloquence and translation: does the preacher's authority come from the text, and what does faithful rendering of it require?"}]}