I think a helpful concept is, is this idea or statement prescriptive or descriptive?

this is something I learned about in a linguistics class. The professor gave the example of how, in the early years of TV and news broadcasts, everyone talked with the same voice. It was ‘prescriptive’, meaning, there is a “correct” standard that everyone is expected to follow. So if you have an accent or regional dialect, that’s not accepted.

In contrast, is the ‘descriptive’ model - which is to just observe how people are, how they talk, and try to describe it accurately. (respect their individual way of being)