nothing = anything?

In everyday usage, English speakers use may and might interchangeably--whether you like it or not.

that the standard usage isn't dialectical,

The idea behind descriptivist grammar is that forms that are used by a substantial part of the speech community are accepted and recognised, but the truth is often far from this.

Your "truth" is certainly far from that definition, because you will reject usage by a substantial part of the speech community when you get on your little hobby horse. You just pretend to be a descriptivist. You quickly become a prescriptivist when you want to bludgeon someone, especially someone with whom you have previously disagreed. This crap about double negatives is a perfect example. Certainly many people use them, and from a descriptivist point of view, that makes is "right." But a true descriptivist would also recognize that a substantial portion of the speech community considers it wrong, and would, perforce, accept that, too.

"EVERYTHING IS CORRECT" VERSUS "NOTHING IS RELEVANT"

On January 23 a user identified as Zink made some comments on ceejbot's blog about the Language Log post Nearly all strings of words are ungrammatical. They struck me as really interesting:

Zink: There's a funny bit in there where they try to at once claim to be "descriptivist, not prescriptivist" while at the same time decrying the word "are" in,

Why do some teachers, parents and religious leaders feel that celebrating their religious observances in home and church are inadequate and deem it necessary to bring those practices into the public schools?

Sorry kids, you can't be an apple and an orange, and if you're a descriptivist, and someone honestly makes a sentence, that's an honest sentence in the language that actually is.

By "they" Zink means the Language Log staff (the post was actually mine; none of my colleagues need take responsibility for the views expressed here). What's so interesting is that it is quite clear Zink [Setanta] cannot see any possibility of a position other than two extremes: on the left, that all honest efforts at uttering sentences are ipso facto correct; and on the right, that rules of grammar have an authority that derives from something independent of what any users of the language actually do.

But there had better be a third position, because these two extreme ones are both utterly insane.

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001843.html

you are making the assumption that because double negation sounds ignorant, then all other nonstandard use sounds ignorant.

From Using English-dot-com:

I came about this judgment about this particular language use after learning the standard language use.

At this point, defenders of the standard are likely to pull out the notorious double negative, as in [I can't get no satisfaction.] Logically speaking, the two negatives cancel each other out, they teach; Mr. Jagger is actually saying that he is satisfied. The song should be entitled "I Can't Get [Any] Satisfaction." But this reasoning is not satisfactory. Hundreds of languages require their speakers to use a negative element in the context of a negated verb. The so-called "double negative," far from being a corruption, was the norm in Chaucer's Middle English, and negation in standard French, as in [Je ne sais pas] where [ne] and [pas] are both negative, is a familiar contemporary example. Come to think of it, standard English is really no different. What do [any], [even], and [at all] mean in the following sentences? I didn't buy any lottery tickets. I didn't eat even a single french fry. I didn't eat fried food at all today. Clearly, not much: you can't use them alone, as the following strange sentences show: I bought any lottery tickets. I ate even a single french fry. I ate fried food at all today. What these words are doing is exactly what [no] is doing in nonstandard American English, such as in the equivalent [I didn't buy no lottery tickets] -- agreeing with the negated verb. The slim difference is that nonstandard English co-opted the word [no] as the agreement element, whereas Standard English co-opted the word [any].

I hope to have convinced you of two things. Many prescriptive rules are just plain dumb and should be deleted from the usage handbooks. And most of standard English is just that, standard, in the sense of standard units of currency or household voltages. It is just common sense that people should be given every encouragement and opportunity to learn the dialect that has become the standard one in their society and to employ it in many formal settings. But there is no need to use terms like "bad grammar," "fractured syntax," and "incorrect usage" when referring to rural and Black dialects. Though I am no fan of "politically correct" euphemism (in which, according to the satire, "white woman" should be replaced by "melanin-impoverished person of gender"), using terms like "bad grammar" for "nonstandard" is both insulting and scientifically inaccurate.

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1994_01_24_thenewrepublic.html

does not negate the fact that double negation sounds ignorant.

I came about this judgment about this particular language use after learning the standard language use.

A nonjudgmental approach to language that focuses on how it is actually spoken and written.

Descriptivist: A grammatical treatise or dictionary is said to be descriptivist if it has the goal of describing nonjudgmentally how a group of people tends to use language, rather than the goal of fashioning guidelines or 'rules' for grammar, spelling, and word use.

If, as you allege, descriptivism describes how language is actually used, you'd be obliged to acknowledge that a significant proportion of the language-using community of English-speakers consider a double negative to be wrong.

It is your value judgment that this makes them ignorant.

It is your value judgment that noting as much is leading an ESL student astray.

It is your value judgment that your particular prejudice here is "science."

As a matte of fact, i can see not only more that just two positions, but several positions which represent nuance.

You're the one here is being a presciptivist by saying that those English speakers who consider a double negative to be wrong are "ignoramuses."

Not only was it not misleading to tell Oristar that a double negative is considered wrong (at no time did i say it is wrong, only that it is considered wrong),

it is an important clue to Oristar achieving communicative competence.

It is precisely because i don't subscribe to the notion that all attempts at sentences are ipso facto correct that i offer the ESL student the best usage advice that i can.

You don't like Using English-dot-com? You want to be snotty about that site? That's OK by me. Here's the definition from About-dot-com:


A nonjudgmental approach to language that focuses on how it is actually spoken and written.

You're not nonjudgmental--you're just about the most judgmental member at this site--just as ehBeth pointed out.

Descriptivist: A grammatical treatise or dictionary is said to be descriptivist if it has the goal of describing nonjudgmentally how a group of people tends to use language, rather than the goal of fashioning guidelines or 'rules' for grammar, spelling, and word use.

That's your constant habit here--telling others what they can and can't say about language usage.

You aren't even on a nodding basis with nonjudgmental.

I was impressed enough that I took their word for it that double negation is nonstandard.

Infra was led astray, as were you, as was every student who has ever studied language the US of A.