What this "cunning linguist" has to say about "word crimes"

Well, I may not be a full-on expert out there on linguistics (yet I did get my BA in it) but to some people out there (mainly close relatives and their acquaintances) I guess I can consider myself one. Anyways when I heard that Weird Al was releasing new stuff one of the tracks I was looking forward to was "Word Crimes", a parody of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines". For those who haven't heard of the latter Thicke's song garnered controversy over the song's lyrics surrounding rape culture (the lyrics "I know you want it" following "good girl" creepy enough for you?). "Word Crimes", however, is a more family friendly song that looks at the "proper use" of English grammar, especially when on the internet we seem to poke fun at bad grammar (heck there are posters done by The Oatmeal on grammar).

What kinda irks me a bit is the song, with humour intended and more or less to the native speaker audience, carries some prescriptivism with it. Prescriptivism basically is the idea that there are these sets of rules for the language and these rules dictate the proper use of the language as opposed to taking a look at the language and how it's used in reality. (Am I off in my description? Have a dictionary definition or two!) Taking the word literally for example the definition of it has to do with something actually happening but nowadays it's taking on the use of meaning something figurative. Second thing to note is linguists aren't grammar nazis in general (there may be some out there but I haven't met any). Something like literally taking on a figurative meaning will intrigue a linguist rather than disgust them. The following slideshow is quite informative:

So you know a linguist from Jodie Martin

Anyway here's my little data contribution/two cents. I wouldn't worry too much of these so-called "Word Crimes" unless you're writing some major English test that requires the stuff prescribed in grammar books. Need something to fill up your schedule at university? Take an introductory linguistics course. Who knows, you may find out something about linguists and how some of these "word crimes" aren't that much of a crime. Since my battery is about to go out I'll end it here.