U6 Language Stabilising English

Prescriptivism U6 Language – Stabilising English

The English language was in a state of flux throughout the medieval and early modern periods, so much so that various ‘authorities’ attempted to stabilise it and set down a set of conventions which would govern usage. This approach to language is known as prescriptivism.

Task A:

Read through this group of extracts and identify which authors have a prescriptive attitude to language:

Two negatives in English destroy one another, or are equivalent to an alternative (Lindley Murray, 1794)

It must be allowed, that the custom of speaking is the original and only just standard of any language (Joseph Priestley, 1761)

Custome, is the most certaine Mistresse of Language, as the publicke stampe makes the current money (Ben Jonson, 1640)

The now fashionable pronunciation of several words is to me at least very offensive: contemplate is bad enough, but balcony makes me sick (Samuel Rogers, c.1800)

If you do not immediately suppress the person who takes it upon himself to lay down the law almost every day in your columns on the subject of literary composition, I will give up The Chronicle altogether (George Bernard Shaw, 1892)

Fussing about split infinitives is one of the more tiresome pastimes invented by the nineteenth century grammarians (Barbara Strang, 1962)

Language was made before grammar, not grammar before language (Thomas Hardy, 1904)

‘We’re getting the language into its final shape – the shape it’s going to have when nobody speaks anything else.’ (from 1984 by George Orwell, 1948)

Task B:

Can you work out what is ‘wrong’ with the following phrases?

1. Between you and I, I’m sure that prescriptivism is outdated. 2. I will make sure to definitely ask tomorrow. 3. I only saw Lost last night; I missed X-factor. 4. None were left on the table. 5. My haircut is different to yours. 6. That was the film that I went to. 7. I will go to parents’ evening tonight. 8. Hopefully, I will be allowed out on Saturday. 9. That’s the man who I saw yesterday. 10.They haven’t done nothing.

These were the top ten annoyances voiced by listeners of Radio 4 in 1986!

Task C:

Using the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (2001), make notes on the following prescriptivist phenomena:

a) Spelling and capitalisation reforms (p 66–67). b) Johnson’s dictionary (p 74–5). c) The grammarians of the eighteenth century (p 78–9).

Teacher’s Answer Sheet for Task B

1) should be ‘you and me’ – object rather than subject form of first person pronoun 2) split infinitive 3) should be ‘saw only’ rather than ‘only saw’ – ‘only’ refers to the programme 4) should be ‘none was’ – plural rather than singular 5) should be ‘different from’ 6) ends with a preposition 7) should be ‘shall’ rather than ‘will’ 8) adverb at the beginning of the sentence – should be ‘I hope that …’ 9) should be ‘whom’ I saw 10) double negative