 Grounds for rejecting folk ontologies of language vary. Some argue that specifying a folk language’s properties is, unavoidably, a prescriptive (and so unscientific) exercise. An example sometimes used to illustrate this charge is the meaning of English word “livid”. Most dictionaries give its meanings as “bluish” or “pale”, in deference to its complex etymology. Most English speakers lean towards thinking it means red, after the idiomatic expression “livid with rage” and the belief that rage makes a person red. Similarly, and to the consternation of many who claim to know what English really is, English speakers regularly split infinitives, and see the use of “hopefully” in (1) as no less acceptable than its use in (2), despite being a “Germanism”.