[4] In the descriptive tradition of language analysis, by way of contrast, "correct" tends to mean functionally adequate for the purposes of the speaker or writer using it, and adequately idiomatic to be accepted by the listener or reader; usage is also, however, a concern for the prescriptive tradition, for which "correctness" is a matter of arbitrating style.
This takes place because of the perception that Standard English is determined by language authorities.
[9] Modern dictionaries are not generally prescriptive, but they often include "usage notes" which may describe words as "formal", "informal", "slang", and so on.
"[1] According to Jeremy Butterfield, "The first person we know of who made usage refer to language was Daniel Defoe, at the end of the seventeenth century".
[5] The Latin equivalent usus was a crucial term in the research of Danish linguists Otto Jespersen and Louis Hjelmslev.