Prescriptive grammar creates grammatical norms to define correct or incorrect language use, with little allowance for exceptions. It contrasts with descriptive grammar, which describes how native speakers typically use language. Prescriptive rules may be useful in writing but are often violated in everyday speech. A prescriptive grammar book may contain outdated rules.
Prescriptive grammar is a philosophy or approach to grammar that deals with the creation of grammatical norms that can be used to define spoken or written language as grammatically correct or grammatically incorrect. In a prescriptive grammar approach, linguistic rules are generally assumed to change very little over time and allow for few exceptions. This philosophy of grammar contrasts with descriptive grammar, which is an approach to grammar that relies heavily on descriptions of how native speakers of a language who have achieved linguistic proficiency typically use the language.
The term prescriptive grammar can recall the image of a strict elementary school teacher who states, or prescribes, rules for the correct use of language. Some demanding language teachers insist that these rules must be observed at all times, even in casual speech. Phrases, clauses, and phrases that are acceptable in the playground may be banned in the classroom if found to be “wrong.” This may occur despite their common use in the real world, where they are generally accepted without question.
Some prescribed linguistic rules may be useful in writing composition lessons, but are routinely violated in typical language usage. These types of prescribed rules tend to become well known, as they are often repeated after being broken, and people often have a hard time figuring out how to say what they want to say without breaking the rule. An example of a rule like this is “never end a sentence with a preposition”. The problem is, there are many sentences that would be impossible to gracefully construct without a preposition at the end, such as “What did you step on?”
Prescriptive grammar is opposed to descriptive grammar. In the realm of linguistics, language use is thought to depend on an internalized grammar that allows members of a speech community to produce sentences that can be easily understood by other members of the speech community who have the same internalized grammar. Descriptive grammar can be divided into several distinct areas of language use, which include phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics.
The term prescriptive grammar can also be used to refer to a book containing a list of rules that have been established by a writer or group of writers considered to be experts in the correct use of the language. Because language usage changes over time, a prescriptive grammar published 25 or 50 years ago will often contain some rules that are obsolete or simply no longer followed by the majority of the population.
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