What You Don't Know About Panic Attacks + Linguistic Prescriptivism + A Question for Mibbians

I started dealing with panic attacks when I was 20. First I would just get overwhelmingly anxious about nothing and it would build until I hit breaking point. Then for a long time (I'm talking months) I had nocturnal panic attacks, which are exactly what they sound like--panic attacks that start in your fucking sleep. (Then you wake up already in the midst of a panic attack and it's not a good time.) Then I started having them in public more often. I went about a year without a single major panic attack at one point, but now I have them again. Not as often as I did the first couple years I was having them, but they're definitely still there.

So I decided to go by the Write What You Know rule, and make this the subject of my latest PuckerMob post. What You Don't Know About Panic Attacks (And How to Help). I'm hoping it's something people will relate to and maybe find useful?

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I decided on my next WordPress blog and it's a subject so nerdy I'm probably the only person who will find it remotely interesting: LINGUISTIC PRESCRIPTIVISM!

Linguistic prescriptivism is basically...well, prescribed linguistics. Its opposite is linguistic descriptivism, which is what makes sense to me: The idea that the rules of grammar should follow usage and be based on what is most clear and understandable to a given culture at the time the language is being used.

Linguistic prescriptivism is more about reinforcing the rules of grammar and believing that usage should follow the pre-established rules. This leads to the reinforcement of such arbitrary rules as "Never end a sentence with a preposition" and "Never split an infinitive" (fuck you, I will defend Star Trek's "To Boldly Go" with my life!). Rules that have absolutely no impact on whether the use of language as a form of communication is effective and understandable.

AND I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT LINGUISTIC PRESCRIPTIVISM.

So...be prepared for me to be sharing with you guys a 1200-word rant about it. And I'm not talking from an interesting perspective, like how linguistic prescriptivism is harmful by reinforcing racism and classism and ableism. No, I'm just going to rant on the history of linguistic prescriptivism and why it has no place in modern linguistics and grammar due to its outdated and arbitrary restrictions and due to the ways in which it not only does not contribute to the clarity of communication but can at times prohibit it.

I'm a lot more excited about this than I should be.

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Question: I've been using this blog largely to discuss other writing endeavors. I don't want it to seem like my primary purpose of Mibba is to talk about those endeavors, but right now they're the only part of my life I feel comfortable sharing, because other things are either too personal, too painful, or just things I"m not prepared to talk about until I understand them better.

So the question is, do you guys think I should hold off on using Mibba to promote my writing (which would likely mean holding off on using Mibba at all for a while)? Or do you think the way I'm using it now (which is to talk about stuff but also to link to my blogs in almost every post) is okay? I mean, are any of you really even interested in my other writing endeavors?