What is "prescriptivism"

prescriptivism \pre*scrip"tiv*ism\, n. The doctrine that acceptable grammatical rules should be prescribed by authority, rather than be determined by common usage.

n. (context linguistics English) prescribe idealistic norms, as opposed to describing realistic forms, of linguistic usage.

Prescriptivism may refer to:

• Linguistic prescription, the prescribing of rules for language
• Universal prescriptivism, a meta-ethical theory of the meaning of moral statements