Diastratic

a diastratic usage label

According to Hausmann (1977, Ch. 8), lexically relevant units can receive — typically by means of labels or usage notes — any or all of the following types of diasystematic marking: diachronic (e.g. archaic, neologism); diatopic (e.g. American English for elevator 'lift', British English for loo); diaintegrative for foreign borrowings used in English (e.g. German for Weltanschauung); diastratic (e.g. informal for loo, formal for perambulator); diaconnotative (e.g. from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (W9), often used disparagingly for dyke); diatechnical (e.g. law for tort, anatomy for clavicle; diafrequential (e.g. rare); dianormative (e.g. substandard for ain't).

The eschewing of Grantha letters despite their widespread use in modern Tamil, and the unnecessary diastratic and dianormative labelling of many common items as 'non-standard', echo traditional views that the language needs to be 'protected' against the innovations of ordinary everyday speech.