PART IV

(Late Modern English)

18th century

- search for stability, desire for system and regularity standard and correctness

- the codification of English falls under three heads:

1) ascertainment (to reduce the language to rule and set up a standard of correct usage) Swift’s Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue (1712). This means to have at least a dictionary + a grammar.

2) to refine it (i.e. to remove supposed defects). E.g. Swift opposed:- clipped words (rep, mob, penult)- contracted verbs (drudg’d, disturb’d, rebuk’d, fledg’d)- recent words such as sham, banter, mob, bubble, bully, shuffling, palming

3) to fix it permanently

• Italy and France were an important example:

Accademia della Crusca (1582)Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca (1612)

Académie française (1635)Dictionnaire de l'Académie française (1694)

• Among the supporters of an English Academy were John Dryden and John Evelyn (in the 17th c.). The culmination of the movement for an English Academy is Swift’s Proposal (1712).

• It is usually claimed (after John Oldmixon) that an academy was never set up because of the death of the Queen.

• The early enthusiasm gave place to scepticism, see e.g. Dr Johnson’s Preface to his Dictionary (1755):

“Those who have been persuaded to think well of my design , require that it should fix our language, and put a stop to those alterations which time and chance have hitherto been suffered to make in it without opposition. With this consequence I will confess that I flattered myself for a while; but now begin to fear that I have indulged expectation which neither reason nor experience can justify. When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature, or clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation.”

“With this hope, however, academies have been instituted, to guard the avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulse intruders; but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain; sounds are too volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength. The French language has visibly changed under the inspection of the academy; the stile of Amelot’s translation of father Paul is observed by Le Courayer to be un peu passé; and no Italian will maintain, that the diction of any modern writer is not perceptibly different from that of Boccace, Machiavel, or, Caro.”

Joseph Priestley, The Rudiments of English Grammar (1761):

“As to a public Academy, invested with authority to ascertain the use of words, which is a project that some persons are very sanguine in their expectations from, I think it not only unsuitable to the genius of a free nation, but in itself ill calculated to reform and fix a language. We need make no doubt but that the best forms of speech will, in time, establish themselves by their own superior excellence: and, in all controversies, it is better to wait the decisions of time, which are slow and sure, than to take those of synods, which are often hasty and injudicious.”

• The belief emerges that a standard was to be brought about not by force but by general consent (see e.g. Thomas Sheridan, British Education, 1756)

• Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) (which was compiled almost single-handedly in less than seven years).

• Johnson hoped that his dictionary would perform the same function as an Academy (and was perceived as such by his contemporaries, the Earl of Chesterfield, Sheridan, Boswell):

- to “refine [the English] language to grammatical purity and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms and irregular combinations”

- to “preserve the purity and ascertain the meaning of our English idiom”

- to fix the pronunciation of English

• The decade beginning in 1760 witnessed a striking outburst of interest in English grammar.

• The main aims were:

(1) to reduce the language to rule

(2) to settle disputed points

(3) to point out supposedly common errors (and thus correct and improve the language)

• Joseph Priestley’s The Rudiments of English Grammar (1761) more liberal than Lowth; he insists on the importance of usage

• Robert Lowth’s Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762) more influential than Priestley; prescriptivism

Some quotes from Lowth:

The principle design of a grammar of any language is to express ourselves with propriety in that language; and to enable us to judge of every phrase and form of construction, whether it be right or not. (p. viii)

Will, in the first person singular and plural, promises or threatens; in the second and third persons, only foretells: shall on the contrary, in the first person, simply foretells; in the second and third persons, promises, commands, or threatens. (p. 41)

Two negatives in English destroy one another, or are equivalent to an affirmative. (p. 95)

The preposition is often separated from the relative which it governs, and joined to the verb at the end of the sentence, or of some member of it: as, “Horace is an author whom I am delighted with.” … This is an idiom, which our language is strongly inclined to: it prevails in common conversation, and suits very well the familiar style of writing: but the placing of the preposition before the relative, is more graceful, as well as more perspicuous; and agrees much better with the solemn and elevated style (pp. 95-6)

The relatives who, which, that, having no variation of gender or number, cannot but agree with their antecedents. Who is appropriated to persons; and so may be accounted masculine and feminine only: we apply which now to things only … But formerly they were both indifferently used of persons: “Our Father which art in heaven” (p. 100)

Other influential 18th c. grammars:

• James Buchanan’s British Grammar (1762)• John Ash’s Grammatical Institutes (1763)• Noah Webster’s A Grammatical Institute of the English

Language (1784; in America)• Lindley Murray’s English Grammar (1795)

More philosophical (and less influential):

John Wilkins’ Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668)

James Harris’ Hermes (1751)

• Rhetoricians:

Thomas Sheridan, British Education, 1756

George Campbell, Philosophy of Rhetoric, 1776

• Examples (see B&C: 279):

intransitive layhad rather, had betterwhose as the possessive of whichdifferent from vs. than/tobetween vs. amonglarger vs. largestmore perfectthis here, that thereyou wasthan I vs. than meI don’t like him vs. his doing thatmultiple negativesshall and will

Here are some examples of “bad” English from H. Marmaduke Hewitt’s A Manual of Our Mother Tongue (published at end of 19th century):

(1) Leave Nell and I to toil and work. (Dickens) (2) How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this

bank! (Shakespeare) (3) He would have spoke. (Milton) (4) He parts his hair in the centre. (5) This is quite different to that. (6) ‘The boy stood on the deck, (7) Whence all but he had fled.’ (Hemans)

• Prescriptive rules were arrived at by:

(1) reason (i.e. analogy or consistency)

(2) etymology

(3) the example of Latin and Greek (but not as important as the former two)

See examples in B&C: 280-2.

• Priestley is much more progressive:

“It must be allowed, that the custom of speaking is the original and only just standard of any language. We see, in all grammars, that this is sufficient to establish a rule, even contrary to the strongest analogies of the language with itself. Must not custom, therefore, be allowed to have some weight, in favour of those forms of speech, to which our best writers and speakers seem evidently prone […]?”

“The best and the most numerous authorities have been followed. Where they have been contradictory, recourse hath been had to analogy, as the last resource. If this should decide for neither of two contrary practices, the thing must remain undecided, till all-governing custom shall declare in favour of one or the other.”

“In modern and living languages, it is absurd to pretend to set up the compositions of any person or persons whatsoever as the standard of writing, or their conversation as the invariable rule of speaking. With respect to custom, laws, and every thing that is changeable, the body of a people, who, in this respect, cannot but be free, will certainly assert their liberty, in making what innovations they judge to be expedient and useful. The general prevailing custom, whatever it happen to be, can be the only standard for the time that it prevails.”

A similar position is also found in Campbell, who defines usage as present, national and reputable use. But Priestley, unlike Campbell, was faithful to his principles.

• 18th c. scholars also reacted against the influence of French vocabulary (which however was not great).

• The period under discussion is also the time of the rise of the British Empire.

• The development of the progressive:

he was on laughing > a-laughing > laughing

• The progressive passive (end of the 18th c.):

the house is building > the house is being built

Remember that this construction was often criticized.

• Two spelling systems: the public one (found in printed documents) and the private one (found in informal letters).

Johnson: chymestry, compleat, ocurrence

• In informal letters, a “non-standard” grammar is also manifest:

them admirers you speak of (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu)

Don’t it put you in mind of any thing? (Walpole)

19th & 20th centuries

19th century:

visible change (industrialization and transport)

vs.

myth of stasis in (written) language

• This myth is linked to the rhetoric of standardization:

• ‘the Teacher should point out to his pupils the erroneous expressions of their own locality, and endeavour to eradicate them’ (Pearson, The Self-Help Grammar of the English Language, 1865).

• But variability also existed in the writings by educated people (e.g. variation of or/our).

• A further interesting example is the loss of the be participle with unaccusative verbs (e.g. She is arrived vs. She has arrived). E.g. George Eliot: ‘Mr Lewes is gone to the museum for me’ (1861).

• Prescriptivism also dictated the use of a singular anaphoric pronoun with pronouns such as everybody, while the use of a plural anaphor goes back to the 16th century and continues into the 19th century.

• Notice also that post-vocalic /r/ became a marker of the standard language only in the 2nd half of the century. Previously, it was commended as essential in ‘standard’ speech.

• Writing also influenced pronunciation: waistcoat, hospital, humble, humour, herb (/h/-less variant still possible in AmE!)

• Some pronunciation features dictated by the myth of standardization (in the latter half of the 19th century):

hand // ørunning

birdbutter

• But alongside subjective approaches to language (i.e. the prescriptive agenda), there were also those who were interested in an objective study of linguistic facts: e.g. the London Philological Society (founded in 1842).

• The phonetician Henry Sweet realised that the notion of ‘correct speaker’ remained elusive (‘he is an abstraction, a figment of the imagination’). As Ellis observed, register, gender, age and status all influence pronunciation choices.

• Objectivism also lead to an interest in local dialects (which were felt to be in danger of extinction), e.g. the English Dialect Society. But dialects were often condemned by the supporters of the myth of standardization.

• In more subjective approaches, a distinction was sometimes drawn between rural dialects (viewed positively) and urban dialects (viewed negatively).

• Renewed interest in spelling reform in the latter part of the 19th c. (both in the UK and in the US). But such efforts were not very successful (but cf. the American spellings program, catalog).

• Purist efforts are always present, see e.g. The Society for Pure English (founded in 1913).

The Oxford English Dictionary

www.oed.com

1857: meeting of the Philological Society in London with a view to publishing a supplement to the existing dictionaries of English

1860: “Proposal for the Publication of a New English Dictionary by the Philological Society”

The aim was to record and trace the history of all words from about the year 1000 (by the use of quotations).

1864: foundation of the Early English Text Society (http://users.ox.ac.uk/~eets/), which made early English texts widely available

1879: the OUP decides to finance the project. James Murray is appointed editor.

1884: first instalment (part of the letter A) is published

by 1900: four and a half volumes published (as far as the letter H)

1928: 1st edition (after 70 years!), 10 volumes, 15487 pages, 240165 main words

1933: supplementary volume published

1972-1986: four-volume Supplement (incorporating the 1933 one) under Robert Burchfield

1989: 2nd edition (1st ed. + the Burchfield Supplement + about 5,000 new words) in twenty volumes, 290500 main entries

1992: a CD-Rom version is published

1993 & 1997: three Additions Series volumes published (in preparation of the 3rd ed.)

2000: launch of the OED Online (quarterly updates: http://www.oed.com/help/updates/)

20th century:

A deliberate intervention on language is politically correct (PC) language:

- Everybody should button their coat.

- Ms

- Flight attendant

- chair(person)

• Grammatical tendencies:

- You were (for You was)- It is me (for It is I)- subjunctive - nonstandard he don’t- Who do you want?- the get passive (He got run over by a car)- phrasal verbs