| PRESCRIPTIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR AND USAGE | | |
| | | For the past half-century, these terms have served as useful labels for two contrasting approaches to the study of grammar and usage and especially to the teaching of these matters. They have also long served as epithets in the recurrent name-calling that quarreling over correctness, appropriateness, and permissiveness in language seems to elicit. | 1 | | The terms represent polar values: (1) A descriptive approach to language describes in full detail precisely how we use that language. The chief values of this approach are accuracy and an unretouched picture of usage, warts and all. (2) A prescriptive approach insists that however many variables might be found, there are better and worse choices; it will specify at least which is most appropriate, more likely which is acceptable, or, in its most rigorous application, which is correct. Clearly, the prescriptive approach is easier to teach—there is always one right answer; the descriptive approach may offer several possible answers, each appropriate in one or another context. | 2 | | This book uses both approaches. Users are seeking help, and they should find it. The problem is that a simplistic “correct” answer may seem helpful, but often when it appears to contradict users’ experience, they will either shrug off the prescription or find themselves unable to accept it. For example: to say succinctly that irregardless is not a word or at least that it ought to be treated as though it were not a word, is prescriptive. The “rule” being promulgated is: Don’t use irregardless; pretend it doesn’t exist, because, in fact, it’s not in Standard English. | 3 | | But, in fact, that’s not true. It is a word, and therefore it is in the dictionaries; many people use it, including some who in other respects speak Standard English. A descriptive account of the word will show who uses it and when, where, and why. Irregardless, it turns out, occurs regularly in Common and Vulgar English, but in Standard its only acceptable use is jocular. A descriptive account will end by pointing out that the inadvertent use of irregardless in Standard English can be a shibboleth. | 4 | | The prescriptive commentator then impatiently inquires, Why all the fuss? Why pussyfoot about? Just tell the world not to use irregardless—that’s simple, sound, and teachable. The descriptive commentator will offer at least two objections: (1) The word may be Substandard now, but you can’t be sure it won’t change in status. In fact it may be in the process of such change even now: it may be fading to an obsolete status (in which case we can stop talking about it), or it may someday become Standard. (2) Even more important, sometimes Standard speakers do use irregardless; the issue is where and how. | 5 | | Even in spelling and pronunciation, where prescription may seem less problematic, description may sometimes be more nearly accurate. Prescription says judgment is the correct spelling, but description accurately points out that even Edited English considers judgement correct too. And although the teacher may prescribe DEK-uh-dent as the correct way to say decadent, the student will discover other teachers who say (also in Standard English) dee-KAI-dent. | 6 | This book, as it must, uses both approaches, depending on the problem. See the entry on RULES AND GENERALIZATIONS for an account of the aptness of each approach to particular kinds of questions: Where real rules apply, prescription is the way to go. But much of grammar and most of usage require generalizations rather than rules, because what so often we must provide is some current best advice on a problem that is undergoing change even as we discuss it. Description faces up to complexity and raggedness and avoids simplistic glossing over of existing variation in pronunciations, forms, or meanings. Rigorous prescribers often charge describers with being permissive, and the countercharge of describers is that prescribers are simplistic, peddling half-truths and lies as though they were true. But in the end, a guide to usage must give advice, and so this manual prescribes for its users when it can. The difference is that it also explains such other experiences as users are likely to encounter and where possible explains what they mean. See also CONSERVATIVES IN LANGUAGE MATTERS; CONSERVATIVE USAGE; LIBERALS IN LANGUAGE MATTERS; LIBERAL USAGE; PURISTS. 这是在google里搜到的关于那篇语法阅读的背景知识，希望能对大家有点用处,同时为自己积攒RP 吧.分为descriptive grammar and prescriptive grammar | 7 | | |
这是GDP那篇GWD的阅读,我找不到在哪里,只是在网上搜到的，请大家帮忙找找看是GWD的哪篇,谢谢啦 27. GDP 1977 and journalists errors (5Q’s)
E、GDP增长
Citing the fact that the real gross
domestic product (GDP) per capita was
higher in 1997 than ever before, some
Line journalists have argued that the United
(5) States economy performed ideally in
1997. However, the real GDP is almost
always higher than ever before; it falls
only during recessions. One point
these journalists overlooked is that in
(10) 1997, as in the twenty-four years imme-
diately preceding it, the real GDP per
capita grew nearly one-half percent a
year more slowly than it had on aver-
age between 1873 and 1973. Were the
(15) 1997 economy as robust as claimed,
the growth rate of real GDP per capita
in 1997 would have surpassed the
average growth rate of real GDP per
capita between 1873 and 1973 because
(20) over fifty percent of the population
worked for wages in 1997 whereas
only forty percent worked for wages
between 1873 and 1973. If the growth
rate of labor productivity (output per
(25) hour of goods and services) in 1997
had equaled its average growth rate
between 1873 and 1973 of more than
two percent, then, given the proportion-
ately larger workforce that existed in
(30) 1997, real GDP per capita in 1997 would
have been higher than it actually was,
since output is a major factor in GDP.
However, because labor productivity
grew by only one percent in 1997, real
(35) GDP per capita grew more slowly in
1997 than it had on average between
1873 and 1973.
題目
有一題問此篇主旨,
有一題問journalists的idea是什麼
Q35:
The passage is primarily concerned with
A. comparing various measures used to assess the performance of the United States economy in 1997
B. providing evidence that the performance of the United States economy in 1997 was similar to its performance between 1873 and 1973
C. evaluating an argument concerning the performance of the United States economy in1997
D. examining the consequences of a popular misconception about the performance of the United States economy in 1997
E. supporting an assertion made by journalists about the performance of the United States economy in 1997
Answer: C
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Q36:
According to the passage, which of the following is true of the average rate at which real GDP per capita grew in the twenty-four years immediately before 1997?
A. It was less than it had been between 1873 and 1973 because only forty percent of the population worked for wages between 1873 and 1973.
B. It was less than it had been between 1873 and 1973 because labor productivity grew less between 1973 and 1997 than it had between 1873 and 1973.
C. It was less than it had been between 1873 and 1973 as a result of an increase in the percentage of the population earning wages during these years.
D. It was less than the average rate at which real GDP per capita grew between 1873 and 1973.
E. It was less than the rate at which real GDP per capita grew in 1997.
Answer: D
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Q37:
It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following is the reason that the author faults the journalists referred to in line 4?
A. They believe that the real GDP per capita in 1997 was higher than the real GDP per capita had ever been before.
B. They argue that the rate at which real GDP per capita grew in 1997 was faster than the average rate at which it had grown between 1873 and 1973.
C. They overestimate the effect of labor productivity on the real GDP per capita in 1997.
D. They overestimate the amount by which real GDP per capita in 1997 surpassed real GDP per capita in earlier years.
E. They fail to consider the real GDP per capita in 1997 within an appropriate historical context.
Answer: E
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