Comments by "Craxin01" (@Craxin01) on "The Truth About Language with Valerie Fridland - Factually! - 214" video.

The segment of um and uh and "you know" and "like" reminded me of the public speaking class I took in high school. The teacher would have us prepare a speech and give it at the end of each week, and would grade us down a letter grade for each use of these, "verbal crutches." I still have difficulty not chastising myself for using them.
49
Generally, it's good to understand more common language, but one should also understand formal language. It helps to bridge the gap between different groups. If we aren't all speaking the same language, miscommunication happens frequently. I try to use more standardized language when dealing with people I don't know to ensure fewer misunderstandings but adopt more common language or more in-group differences once I am more comfortable with the person or people I am speaking with.
7
@darinsingleton3553 Not debate, public speaking. And, yes, public speaking sounds more professional (the point of the class) when one is capable of expressing coherent thoughts without stammering or holding onto these so-called verbal crutches.
5
There needs to be a happy medium between purely prescriptivism and descriptivism. It's easy to get lost when communicating with someone who doesn't speak the same way you do even though you technically speak the same language. At some point, two people have to agree what a word means, or they aren't communicating. That being said, having a wide range of different dialects can help one be a better communicator. The dictionary needs to fulfil both functions, describing words as they are currently being used and prescribing what they have meant in the past to help understand where words come from and where they are going.
2
@lostboy8084 It really was about public speaking. A formal process where one really should have their thoughts organized. If you're watching someone that's meant to be conveying important information and they go, "um, uh, you know," every ten seconds, it's going to sound like they don't know what they're talking about, and useful information will not be conveyed because a lot of people won't accept it.
2
@abziehbild1984 If you describe something being used the way it was in the past with the intention to keep it being used that way in perpetuity, that is prescriptivism.
1
@sashaboydcom Formal rules are a good basis, a backbone if you will, for language. But informal rules also exist. Formal would need a prescriptive set, informal a descriptive set. I've heard black people call one set "job interview" or "white voice," and the way they speak to their families and friends as normal or "Ebonics." What I was saying previously, and apparently not as well as I could have, is the dictionary needs to have both ideals and not be exclusively one or the other.
1