Practice question · Multiple choice
A style guide condemns a construction that every speaker of a variety produces consistently and understands. What does a descriptive linguist conclude?
Hints
- Ask what consistent use across a whole community indicates.
- Consistency is the signature of a rule, not of a mistake.
Show the answer
D. That the variety has a rule the guide has not described
Why
That there is a rule the guide missed. Errors are inconsistent by nature; a form produced reliably by a whole community and understood by all of them is being generated by a system. Note that the second option is a different claim entirely, it is advice about the guide, which is not a linguistic finding.
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