"who's" is "who is"[1] or "who has"[2], and it can be wrestled into a possessive if you make "who" all or part of a name[3], but it's the wrong sort of possessive for this context. If you really want the possessive form, it ought to be phrased "which person's", which is mostly what "whose" means.

(An actual linguist would speak more about the genitive and how it works in English, but I'm not as capable.)

[1]: e.g. "Who's there?" [2]: e.g. "Who's let the cat out again?" [3]: e.g. "This is you-know-who's box of tricks."

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

prescriptivism

(linguistics) The practice of prescribing idealistic norms, as opposed to describing realistic forms, of linguistic usage.

E.g.

Most linguists in this age believe that prescriptivism is outmoded and should no longer be used
Most linguists in this age believe that descriptivism is a more accurate model of language than prescriptivism
Most linguists in this age believe that "correcting" language unnecessarily is actively harmful, as it stifles the evolution of a living growing thing, which prescriptivism fails to accurately model
Most linguists in this age agree the more important factor is CONTEXT, that you should use the correct language style for the context, whereas prescriptivism falls flat as it ignores context. Contextual Language is the idea that you use a different style of language talking to your boss then you do to your friend, then you do to your best friend, than you do to a stranger

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I envy these linguists' ability to either not be irked by grammar errors at all or to be able to deal with their irritation when errors arise.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I also envy their ability to understand what was meant, because sometimes there are enough errors to make meaning completely impossible to discern

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

There's this thing in linguistics, casual language requires backchanneling - to respond back with either short utterances that show you understand, or to show confusion and then ask for clarity

The reason formal language is formalised, as in the shit used in essays, is that there is no easy way to say "what did you mean?" - the feedback loop is far too slow for that process and by the point the author(s) get to respond they likely forget what they meant as well

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This makes so much sense, my most painful experience in understanding department is from forums where feedback is at best hours long, and infinitely long at worst if the person never ever replies

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Honestly, you might enjoy the PopSci book Because Internet it's by a linguist that studies neologisms and emerging language patterns as her main focus, focusing specifically on the growth of casual informal language that has only been made possible by The Internet

[–] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Well, that was an entirely unnecessary and lengthy correction to a mistake that was A) a typo I didn't notice from using swipe on my phone keyboard, not a misunderstanding on grammar, and B) not an error that rendered my comment confusing or indecipherable requiring your clarification. But thank you for your (air quotes) help. I really hope that you're a bot, not a person this annoying or one who writes that way.

[–] psud@aussie.zone 0 points 3 months ago

When one provides correction for someone is much better to do that than to reply "*whose"

You don't need to read it if you don't want to