George Orwell once wrote, All art is propaganda. Descriptivism is prescriptivism by proxy if the subject matter is literature and art. Beware this and other such dogma. Though one might be obliged to apply descriptivism here, the observer should not mistake any such media as objective or a reflection of public opinion. It is unwise to apply absolute prescriptivism or absolute descriptivism. Descriptivism might seem justified, but if it's followed strictly and to the point that language is debased as a result of integrating any sort of nonsense just because people use it, then that's clearly not a responsible approach. In other words it's a cop out when taken to the extreme, because it allows one to enshrine any popular buzzword or stock phrase that's arguably not SoP and ignore any opposing arguments, regardless of whether such words and phrases are subversive, politically expedient, or generally a bastardization/distortion of the language at large. It precludes any critical assessment of language. Even if a user makes a perfectly sensible critical argument, it can be written off and conveniently ignored with little more than a comment like wiktionary is a descriptive dictionary. It seems like common sense that neither descriptivism or prescriptivism are ideal when they're set in stone. The constant emphasis on descriptivism may also impress a false sense of objectivity. Generally (and beyond just Wiktionary itself), I sense there's a broader effort to characterize dissent and critical commentary as inappropriate, unfashionable or abusive. For instance, despite Wiktionary's strictly descriptivist approach, it seems common practice to prescribe context e.g. by the misuse/overuse of context labels like derogatory, which is arguably appropriate in some cases, or offensive which seems inappropriate altogether. For example, why do propaganda and wooden language bear the context label derogatory? I dislike that these important words are made to seem inappropriate or offensive. In other cases, words are sometimes offensive because they're derogatory, but in that case derogatory should be used instead as it's a more objective descriptor. It describes the word rather than a potential reaction to the use of that word. Even then, the definitions themselves should be clear enough to obviate the use of some context labels like derogatory or pejorative in most cases. On the other hand, a dictionary has no business telling the reader what is or isn't offensive. At any rate, it should be entirely acceptable to look at things on a case-by-case basis and make critical arguments when one feels something is wrong. I dislike the ad-nauseam emphasis on descriptivism, which is really not as objective or socially-responsible as I feel it's made to seem. AP295 (talk) 22:35, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
Orwell makes several interesting observations in his essay Politics and the English Language: "As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug." Another salient observation by Orwell, which should really be read in its full context but gets the point across without it: "You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you – even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent – and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear." While Wiktionary justifiably rejects many phrases as SoP, there are plenty of bogus phrases and words, often from the political or corporate idiom, which are enshrined here on Wikitionary. AP295 (talk) 23:08, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
Even apart from specific issues like these, it's rather exasperating that I can't get my entry tacit collusion to stick. It's not SoP per wikipedia:tacit collusion, or at least is clearly a more salient term than SoP would suggest and a topic of ongoing academic research, but the entry was summarily deleted on grounds that it's SoP. Conversely, invaluable entries such as have one's pockets on swole and Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg seem to be taken quite seriously in their respective RfVs and RfDs. With all due respect, this seems like a rather severe misordering of priorities. I tend to make a lot of edits on talk pages, the forums, and (to a lesser extent) userspace. I think this is quite natural for any wikimedia project, as content in mainspace should be considered carefully and discussed with due attention to detail. While I'm sometimes given grief for this, I make no apologies for it. In the case of wiktionary, most common English words are already defined and I feel quality is more important than quantity. AP295 (talk) 01:09, 12 December 2023 (UTC)