The Cambridge History of the English Language Volume 4 Part 8 docx

Phonology
141
Although he
was
described on the
1795
tidepage as 'living in
CamberwelT
(i.e.
close
to London), other evidence shows that his background was Scottish:
see
e.g.
Scott
1928:
494.
142
See
Eustace
1969:61-6
for
a
detailed exposition
and
discussion of the
variety
of [r]-like sounds and symbols used by
Ellis.
Some of these, e.g.
Ellis's
Vocal

r
9
, and Vocal murmur', were probably rhotacised sounds.
Similarly,
of the
two sorts of /r/ realisation mentioned by Comstock & Mair
(1874),
the
second, the 'smooth' one, is also
likely
to have been rhotacised (Comstock
&
Mair
1874:
16-17).
143
The description of American
/r/
by
Day
(1843:450)
deliberately
leaves open
the question of the position and activity of the tip of the tongue, once the
'essential position' is established of the posterior
part
of the tongue being in
contact with the upper teeth or gums.
144
Confirmation of

an
earlier
fricative
pronunciation
may
come
from
the typical
South
African
pronunciation nowadays of /r/ as a
fricative,
not an approxi-
mant
—
on the assumption that an
earlier
(i.e. eighteenth and
early
nineteenth
century)
British pronunciation lies behind some of the phonological and
phonetic features of modern
South
African
English.
A similar line of argu-
ment can be offered for the occurrence of the 'bunched
/r/'
in American

English,
with
a
possible antecedent being the use of this
articulation
in
earlier
forms
of British
English.
145 ABDOMEN, ACADEMY, ACCEPTABLE, ACCEPTABLY,
ACCESS,
ACCES-
SARY,
ACCESSORY, ACETÓSE, ACUMEN, ADMINISTRATOR, ADVERTISE,
ADVERTISEMENT, ADVERTISER, ADVERTISING, AERIAL, ALCOVE,
ALLY,
ALMOST, AMPHITHEATRE, ANCHOVY,
ANNEX,
APHRODISIAC,
ARBUTUS,
ARCHDUKE, ARISTOCRACY, ARISTOCRAT, AVANT-GARDE,
BALCONY,
BELLES LETTRES,
BITUMEN,
BOMBAST, CANINE, CAPIL-
LARY,
CAPRICE, CARBINE, CELIBACY, CEMENT, CEMENT (v),
CHAMPAIGN (Open Country) , CHAMPAIGN (wkie), COADJUTOR, COM-
MENDATORY, COMMENDABLE, COMMENDATORY, COMMENTATOR,

COMMODORE, COMMONWEALTH, COMPENSATE, COMPLAISANCE,
COMPROMISE,
COMPROMISING, CONCORDANCE, CONFESSOR, CON-
FISCATE,
CONSECUTIVE, CONSISTORY, CONSTRUE, CONSTRUED, CON-
SUMMATE,
CONTEMPLATE, CONTRARY, CONTROVERSY, COQUETRY,
COROLLARY,
CORRIDOR,
DANDELION,
DECOROUS, DEHORTATORY,
DEMONSTRABLY, DEMONSTRATE, DEPRECATORY, DESPICABLE,
DESPICABLENESS, DIOCESAN, DISPUTABLE, ELONGATE, ENERVATE,
ENTERPRISE, ENTERPRISING, ENVELOPE, EXCAVATE, EXCAVATED,
EXECUTER, EXEMPLARY, EXHORTATORY, EXIGENCY, EXPURGATORY,
EXQUISITE, EXQUISITELY, FINANCIER, FLORIN, FORMIDABLY,
GEOGRAPHY,
GLADIATOR, GRIMACE, HOSPITABLE, HOSPITABLY,
HYPOCHONDRIAC, HYPOCHONDRIACAL, ILLUSTRATE, ILLUSTRA-
TIVELY,
IMBECILE, IMPRECATORY, INCULCATE, INDISPUTABLE,
533
Michael
Κ. Ρ. MacMahon
INDISSOLUBLE, INDISSOLUBLY,
INEXPERT,
INEXPLICABLE, INN
HOLDER,
INOPPORTUNE,
INTERSTICE,

INTUMESCENCE,
IRREPARA-
BLE, JUDICATURE, KORAN, LABORATORY, LANDAU, LEGISLATOR,
MAGNETISE, MATADOR, MEDIATOR, MENAGERIE, MISCELLANY,
MISHAP, MODERATOR,
MULTIPLÍCATE, OBDURATE, OPERATOR,
ORCHESTRA, ORCHESTRE, PACIFICATORY,
PANTHEON,
PEREMPTO-
RILY,
PEREMPTORINESS, PEREMPTORY, PERFECT (v), PERFECTED,
PREDICAMENT, PRETEXT, PROCURATOR, PROFILE, PROMULGATE,
QUADRUPLE,
QUINTESSENCE,
RAGAMUFFIN, RECOGNISE, RECOG-
NISING,
RECUSANT, REMONSTRATE, RENDEZVOUS, RESEARCH,
RESERVOIR,
RETINUE,
S ACRIFICATORY, SACRIFICING, SALINE,
SATELLITE, SCRUTINISE, SHERBET, SINISTER, SPLENETIC, SUBSTAN-
TIVE, SUCCESSOR, SUPERFLUOUS, SUPERVISE, SUPERVISING, SUR-
CHARGE, SURVEY, TOPOGRAPHY,
TOUPEE,
TRAVERSE, TRAVERSE,
TURMOIL, UNDERTAKER, UNTOWARD, UNTOWARDLY,
UTENSIL,
VAGARY,
VENTILATOR, VERTIGO, VIBRATE.
146

Ideally,
a
dataset
is
required
which takes full account of the
various
morpho-
logical features and diachronic lexical sources which have contributed to the
numerous lexical stress
patterns
of
English
(cf. the typology of
such
a
dataset
in Kingdon
1958).
Furthermore, the accuracy of
some
of the data to be
examined
here
cannot be
fully
guaranteed.
For
instance,
it

is
noteworthy
that
OEHl
(1992) quotes
far
more
cases
of alternative stress-patterns which are
identical to
pre-1945
patterns, than any of the other dictionaries from 1945
onwards.
This may have more to do with the automatic 'translation' of
Murray's
phonetic notation for OED\ into IPA for 0EU1 (cf. MacMahon
1985),
than
the
results
of
any
survey
of
late
twentieth-century
stress
patterns.
An
example

is
i
L
LU
s
T
RAT
E
:
up to about
1850,
the
pattern
was
xpx;
by
1908,
it
was both pxx and xpx;
since
1917,
the stressing has
been
only pxx - with
the exception of
OED2,
which, in
1992,
has xpx. The latter is the same as
OEDVs

stress-pattern of the word from no
later
th^n
1899.
147
Even then, the brief
remarks
in, for example, Herries
1773
and Odell 1806
are
indicative
rather
than substantive.
148
See
further
Abercrombie
1965.
149
The pitch of A
4
in the
1770s
was approximately
425
Hz; cf. with today's 440
Hz. Consequendy,
all
the pitch

values
in Steele
1775/1779
should be lowered
by
about
a
semi-tone to reproduce
as
accurately
as
possible the physical qual-
ities of Steele's and
Garrick's
intonation.
150
A caveat must be that Steele
was
born
in
Ireland
and
moved
later
to London.
Garrick
was
brought up in Staffordshire and moved to London at the age of
twenty. Given the relatively sparse examples that exist of intonation gener-
ally

in the published
literature,
it is not possible to determine the extent to
which their
rhythm
and intonation may have differed from that of educated
native Londoners.
5
34
Phonology
151
Vol. II contains a few more examples.
Walker
makes no attempt to systema-
tise the description of intonation.
Note,
however, the view of Faber
1987:
31,
who argues that
Walker's
'genius
[in the description of intonation] and
the scale of his contribution
are
not sufficiendy recognised'.
Faber
maintains
that
Walker

anticipated 'in many
ways'
the concept of the nucleus, that he
described all the nuclear tones and that he introduced the tonetic
marks
for
rising
and
falling
tones.
(One can, of course,
already
see elements of
Walker's
analysis in Steele (1775).)
152
Cylinder
recordings exist of the
speech
of
Alfred,
Lord
Tennyson
(1809-92),
William
Gladstone
(1809-98),
Robert Browning
(1812-89),
George, 2nd

Duke of Cambridge
(1819-1904),
William
Booth
(1829-1912),
Arthur
Peel
(1829-1912),
Robert
Cecil,
3rd
Marquess
of
Salisbury
(1830-1903),
Charles
Haddon
Spurgeon
(1834-92),
and Sir Henry Irving
(1838-1905).
For an
analysis of
a
recording of Gladstone, see Eustace
1969:
74.
153
It cannot be assumed, of course, that 'regional' accents (within Britain at
least) will

automatically
have
been
more
conservative,
and
hence
have
altered
less
over the last two centuries than
RP
has.
FURTHER
READING
The
major
scholarly
study of the period between
late
Middle
English
and
the
early
eighteenth
century
is
Dobson
(1968);

occasionally, it also touches on
matters
to do
with later eighteenth-century pronunciations. Horn &Lehnert
(1954),
though
much
less
detailed than
Dobson,
brings the description of both British and
American
English
pronunciations
forward
in
the
twentieth
century.
Specifically
for
American
English
from the mid-eighteenth to the early twentieth century, the
second
volume of
Krapp
(1925)
is recommended. Jespersen
(1909/1961)

is an
accessible text, and includes much useful commentary on late nineteenth-century
pronunciation.
Briefer
summaries of the period
can
be
found
in
Ekwall
(1975)
and
Gdrlach
(1991).
Wells's
tour
de
force
of
current
English
pronunciation world-wide
(1982)
includes
several
discussions
of phonological changes from Middle
English
onwards5Mugglestone
(1995)

is an important study of various aspects of the
sociophonetics
of nineteenth-century British English.
535
6
ENGLISH
GRAMMAR AND USAGE
Edward
Finegan
6.1.
Introduction
The codification of English
usage,
not by an official academy but by a dispar-
ate band of independent entrepreneurs, constitutes the story of this chapter.
It
is
a story of increasing knowledge about
language
in general and English in
particular, of competition between prescriptive and descriptive
ideals
of
grammar and lexicography in the market-place and of a sHfring role for the
place
of speech and writing in codifying the
language.
It is also a story of the
influence of piety, morality, discipline and social politics on the evaluation of
English usage as the

language
was
codified and the codifications disseminated
over the last two centuries. The focus
throughout
is on Britain, but the inter-
actions between Britons and Americans and the intertwined scholarship and
international markets for English-language grammars and dictionaries make a
tidy
separation of the British and American stories impracticable. Following
section 6.1, the discussion is divided into three periods. Section 6.2 concen-
trates on the
years
roughly from the mid-eighteenth century to the introduc-
tion of comparative historical
linguistics
into Britain around 1830, section 6.3
the period from 1830 to 1930 so as to encompass the entire scope of planning
and producing the
Oxford English Dictionary,
and section 6.4 the span from the
completion of the OED to the close of the millennium. The chronological
subdivisions are somewhat arbitrary in
that
the patterns examined do not start
or end on particular dates, but the periods serve as convenient frames for
focusing on notable trends. Section 6.5 offers some conclusions and prospects.
(American
views
of grammar and usage are reported in volume VI.)

6.1.1
Latin
yields
to
English
in Britain
Latin
played an important role in the intellectual
life
of Britain for some
time after the Reformation had muted its voice in the religious
life
of the
536
English grammar and usage
nation. Although English increasingly encroached on the already limited
territory of the classical language, Latin by no means vanished from
Britain.
Especially in matters of philosophy and science, writers surpris-
ingly
often preferred the
classical
tongue. In the seventeenth century even
grammars of English appeared in Latin, as with
Wallis's
influential
Grammatica Linguae
Anglicanae
(1653)
and Cooper's (1685) later work of the

same title. In other fields, too, writing continued in Latin
well
into the eight-
eenth century: Newton employed it not only for
PrincipiaMathematica
(1687)
but also for
Arithmetica Universalis
(1707).
As
well,
the Royal Society's
Philosophical Transactions
contain occasional pieces in Latin as late as 1775.
Further, in the last decades of the eighteenth century English-language
writers
sometimes quoted and occasionally composed paragraphs in Latin,
more often than not on tide pages and dedications, to be sure, but appar-
ently
confident that many readers would find the code transparent and the
content illuminating. Even in the nineteenth century some university
lec-
turing in Latin could be heard, and an occasional Ph.D. dissertation was
submitted in the traditional language of learning.
By
1700, of course, the tide of writing in Latin had ebbed and by 1776
had receded so definitively that the elocutionist Thomas Sheridan, writing
in
1780 (Preface), could say of the
classical

languages that they are 'fallen
into utter
disuse
Nay so totally are they gone out of fashion, that in order
to avoid the imputation of pedantry, no gentleman must let it appear in
conversation, that he ever had the least tincture of those studies.'
Still,
for
centuries it had been Latin that was referenced by expressions
like
'grammar school' and 'the study of grammar', and only grudgingly and
incompletely in the course of the eighteenth century did the study of
English grammar emerge from the shadows of the classical tongue. By
then the place of English in the intellectual
life
of Britain had become a
matter of some pride, though it was a neglected school subject, as Joseph
Priesdey's
(1761:
ix) mid-century comments indicate:
it is not
much
above a century ago, that our native
tongue
seemed
to be
looked
upon
as
below

the
notice
of
a
classical
scholar; and men of learn-
ing made
very
litde use of it, either
in
conversation
or
in writing: and
even
since
it hath
been
made the vehicle of
knowledge
of all kinds, it hath not
found its
way
into the
schools
appropriated to language, in proportion to
its growing importance
The disproportionately small place of English in the schools was to be cor-
recte
d on
both

sides of the Adantic in the course of the century to follow.
Writing
in a newly independent United States of America,
Noah
Webster
5
37
Edward Finegan
(1789:
18) acknowledged
that
'The English tongue . . . has attained to a
considerable degree of purity, strength and elegance, and been employed,
by
an active and scientific nation, to record almost all the events and
dis-
coveries
of ancient and modern times', and he busied himself codifying the
language
of the new nation in his
spellers,
grammars, and dictionaries.
6.1.2 Vernacular regulation and
academies
Well
before the eighteenth century entered its final quarter, English had
extended its
robust
reach into every domain of use. Bolstered in vocabulary
and syntax to meet an extensive set of

literary,
legal,
commercial, and scientific
demands, it had become 'the vehicle of knowledge of all kinds', as Priesdey
put it, and had been employed 'to record almost all the events and discoveries
of ancient and modern times', as Webster wrote. Nor could anyone using
English
doubt
its strength and adaptability or its potential for eloquence.
Despite such patent
vigour,
however, there remained a distinct perception
that
not
all
was
well
with the vernacular and a netdesome concern
that
it
was
inad-
equately
regulated. Compared with the
classical
language it had displaced in
science
and philosophy and compared even with certain Continental vernacu-
lars,
English appeared uncultivated

—
unpolished, unrefined, unstable, and
unregulated. As a consequence writers felt uncertain about aspects of its use.
By
contrast the Italians had established an academy for the cultivation
and regulation of their vernacular in 1582, and by 1635 the French had
done
likewise
for theirs.
Calls
for an English academy had been voiced by
Dryden and Defoe, among others, but not until a century after Italy's
Accademia
della
Crusca had published its monolingual Italian dictionary
was
the best-known
call
for an English academy given voice. In 1712
Jonathan
Swift
addressed
A
Proposalfor
Correcting,
Improving and
Ascertaining
the
English
Tongue

to the Lord High Treasurer:
I do here complain
that
our
Language
is
extremely
imperfect;
that
its
daily
Improvements are by no means in
proportion
to its
daily
Corruptions;
that
the Pretenders to polish and refine it, have chiefly
multiplied
Abuses and
Absurdities;
and,
that
in
many Instances, it offends
against
every Part of Grammar
What I have
most
at Heart

is,
that
some Method should be
thought
on
for
ascertaining
and
fixing
our
Language
for ever, after such Alterations are
made in it
as
shall
be
thought
requisite.
(1712:8,31)
Thus did Swift lament the imperfections, corruptions, abuses, and absur-
dities
of the vernacular, and he urged formation of a society to alter it
where necessary and
then
to stabilise it.
53»
English grammar and usage
For various reasons Swift's proposal was never to be
honoured
and

among the reasons was suspicion of an official body to rule over the lan-
guage.
Discussing the French Academy's lack of
success,
John Fell (1784:
x—xi)
observed
that
'the republic of letters is a true republic, in its disregard
to the arbitrary decrees of usurped authority'. Of Britain he added
that
'Our critics are allowed to petition, but not to command: and why should
their powers be enlarged? The
laws
of our speech,
like
the
laws
of our
country, should breathe a spirit of
liberty:
they should check licentiousness,
without restraining freedom.' Priestley
(1761:
vii) had expressed a similar
sentiment in noting
that
the idea of an academy was 'not only unsuitable
to the genius of
a free nation,

but in itself ill calculated to reform and fix a
language',
and he further deemed an academy superfluous because 'the best
forms of speech
will,
in time, establish themselves by their own superior
excellence'.
Preferring the 'slow and sure' decisions of time to the 'often
hasty and injudicious' decisions of synods, Priestley argued
that
a language
that
'many persons have leisure to read and write' would eventually reach
'all
the perfection' of which it was capable, much as manufactured goods
are
perfected when they are in demand.
Whereas
Priesdey professed respect for the efficient workings of what
might be called a linguistic market-place, his contemporaries generally
shared Swift's concern
that
the market-place was corrupting the language
by
propagating 'Abuses and Absurdities'. Thus, although Britain did not
establish
a language academy, it was not because Swift's pessimistic view
was
unique or even uncommon: conventional wisdom held
that

English
lacked
adequate codification and
that
'its
daily
Improvements
[were]
by no
means in
proportion
to its
daily
Corruptions'. Rather, many influential
Britons believed
that
English would suffer from the official linguistic con-
straints of an academy, although they remained persuaded
that,
academy or
not, the language needed taming and its unruly improvements reining in.
While
many, including Dr Johnson, shared Priesdey's distaste for an official
academy,
his view
that
English would reach perfection without assistance
was
not
widely

shared, and analysts by the score - Priesdey among them -
enlisted
their grammars and dictionaries in pursuit of what they feared an
otherwise elusive goal.
6.1.3 Grammars,
dictionaries,
and
handbooks
In 1700 a score of English grammars existed, and scores more appeared
by
1800. Several English dictionaries, slight by later standards, also
existed
in 1700, and substantial ones including Dr Johnson's were to
539
Edward Finegan
follow
in the
next hundred
years.
Thus,
in the
eighteenth century
the
regulation and codification
of
English
fell
to independent entrepreneurs:
grammarians and lexicographers operating in
a

market-place unfettered
by
guidelines, unsanctioned
by
imprimatur,
and
unencumbered
by
official
meddling. Then in the nineteenth century, besides grammars and
dictionaries
aplenty, including
a
beginning
for the
grand
Oxford English
Dictionary,
prescriptive handbooks
of
lexical
and grammatical usage also
flourished,
as
the
batde between prescriptivists
and
descriptivists was
joined.
In

the twentieth century, grammar books with distinctiy desctip-
tivist
underpinnings have been compiled,
and the OED
completed,
updated, integrated,
and
computerised
so
that
it is now
available
in a
mammoth set
of
twenty volumes
or a
single saucer-sized compact disc.
The
Oxford
English
Dictionary
on
CD-ROM
is emblematic of the impres-
sive
power
of the
new technologies available
at

the close
of the
millen-
nium, when machine-readable corpora
of
English-language texts
and
computer programs
for
exploring the linguistic usage captured
in
those
texts have enhanced the character
of
reliable information about English
usage
world-wide.
For all
that,
though, there remains uncertainty
in
many quarters
as to
what is right and wrong in English usage, grammar, and lexicography, and
sometimes strident disagreement about how best
to
address such matters.
Echoing nineteenth-century convictions, there is also
a
resurrected sense

that
if
only English grammar were taught properly in the schools, splendid
social
and moral benefits would shower
like
manna from heaven
upon
the
citizens
of
righteous English-speaking communities.
6.2 First period:
mid-eighteenth
century-1830
Particularly
since
the
introduction
of
printing
at
Westminster
in the
late
fifteenth century, the wider functions
of
English have fostered a vernacu-
lar
adept at carrying out the high and low affairs

of
Britain and its colonies.
In
the
extension
of
English into
new
domains
throughout
Britain's
English-speaking centres
of
learning, commerce,
and
government,
however, there also had arisen
a
perplexing diversity
of
linguistic expres-
sion.
Not
only
in
regional
and
social dialects
but in
situational registers,

competing forms
of
English
prompted
concern about correct usage.
Observers fretted about variant forms
and
continuing innovation.
Underlying the unease was
an
assumption
that,
far
from enhancing
a
lan-
guage,
alternative
ways
of
expressing things was potentially harmful.
In
this environment, entrepreneurs
set
about
to
ascertain
the
language
by

540
English grammar and usage
determining its correct forms and to fix it or
give
it permanent form by
codifying
it in dictionaries and grammars.
6.2.1
Selecting
a
variety
to be
standardised
In his 1712 proposal Swift had observed
that
were it not for
familiarity
with
the English of the Bible and Common Prayer Book, 'we should hardly be
able
to understand any Thing
that
was written among us an hundred Years
ago'.
Expressing the concern of many writers
that
a too fluid language
would
soon
leave the written word incomprehensible, he noted

that
the
Bible
and the Book of Common Prayer, because they were 'perpetually
read in Churches', had served as 'a kind of Standard for Language, espe-
cially
to the common People'. In referring to
c
a kind of Standard', Swift
pointed to what would remain a perennial challenge for grammarians and
lexicographers:
identifying appropriate models of English to codify. He
also
pointed to the role of books in providing a standard.
In 1776 the Scottish rhetorician George Campbell published The
Philosophy
of
Rhetoric,
a work of scope and substance
that
included discus-
sion of 'grammatical purity'. For Campbell, the best-known rhetorician of
his
age, what gave 'law to language' was
use.
Like many of his contempo-
raries,
Campbell understood language to be 'purely a species of fashion'
and words to carry meanings by virtue of a tacit agreement among speak-
ers and writers, as Locke had proposed at the end of the seventeenth

century. Drawing an important distinction between the practice of
grammar and the practice of verbal criticism, Campbell restricted
grammarians to the task of description: 'It
is
not the business of grammar,
as
some critics seem preposterously to imagine, to
give
law to the fashions
which regulate our speech'.
In 1776, however, the challenge facing grammarians who jtook usage as
th
e basis for grammatical description was in choosing
whose
usage and
which
kind
of usage to describe. '[I]f use be a matter of such conse-
quence, it
will
be necessary to ascertain precisely what it
is',
Campbell
(1776:
141) said and, in an oft echoed phrase, proposed 'reputable,
national, and present use' as the basis for establishing a standard language.
Present
use he distinguished from
obsolete,
recognising

that
the relevant
chronological scope differs across different forms of composition.
National
he
opposed
not
only
to
provincial
and
foreign
use but to
professional
styles
as
well.
Reputable
use he identified in theory as 'the practice of those
who have had a liberal education, and are therefore presumed to be best
acquainted with men and things'
(1776:
143). (Apologetically, he offered
54i
Edward Finegan
that
if this last characterisation implied 'any deference to the practice of
the great and rich, it is not ultimately because they are greater and richer
than others, but because, from their greatness and riches, they are imag-
ined to be wiser and more knowing'.) In practice Campbell

(1776:144—5)
setded on 'authors of reputation'
—
on the modes of language
that
are
'authorized as good by the writings of a great number, if not the major-
ity,
of celebrated authors'. In balancing theoretical considerations with
practical
ones, Campbell's views are typical of those
that
informed late
eighteenth-century opinion about the role of usage in ascertaining and
codifying
English. He raised questions about the central criteria for ascer-
taining correctness and establishing a standard: the roles of writing and
speaking;
the choice of models; and the distinct responsibilities of
grammarians and critics.
6.2.2
History
and
scope
of
grammar
The earliest English grammars had appeared only in the late sixteenth
century, and the field expanded somewhat in the seventeenth century, but
by
1700 only twenty-one English grammars had been published (Michael

1970:
151). In the eighteenth century, interest in regularising the vernacu-
lar
had sufficiendy increased
that
British and American entrepreneurs -
clerics
and teachers, scientists and
lawyers
- faced a-demand so voluminous
that
some grammars sold by the hundreds of thousands. The success of
Robert Lowth (1710-87)
prompted
popularisers and interpreters such as
John Ash, whose
Grammatical
Institutes
(1763)
promoted
itself as an 'easy
introduction' to Lowth's (1762) work. The
most
successful interpreter was
Lindley
Murray (1745-1826), an American who had retired to England
after a successful career as a
lawyer
and merchant and whose
English

Grammar
(1795),
prepared
initially
for a
girls'
school in York, eventually saw
more than 300 editions on
both
sides of the Adantic.
Other
contributors
included the distinguished natural scientist Joseph Priesdey (1733-1804),
whose
Rudiments
of
English
Grammar
(1761)
appeared a few
months
before
Lowth's work and was superior to it in many
ways
but failed to achieve its
popularity. The impressive
Essay
on
Grammar
(1765) by

William
Ward,
master of a grammar school in York, comprised a speculative treatise of
almost 300 pages and a somewhat smaller practical grammar. Despite its
mammoth proportions, Ward's
Essay
found a sufficient market to be
reis-
sued three times before the century
was
out, and the practical grammar was
abridged
for separate publication. In America no grammar was more
popular than the Englishman Thomas Dilworth's (1751) New
Guide
to the
542
English grammar and usage
English
Tongue,
which was published in Philadelphia in 1747, seven years
after its initial appearance in
London.
It was Dilworth's grammar
that
Webster had used as a schoolboy and aimed to displace when as a school-
master he wrote the second part of his
Grammatical
Institute
(1784).

'Grammar' carried several senses in eighteenth-century Britain. Besides
philosophical, speculative, and universal grammar as
rooted
in the
Port
Royal
tradition (see Padley
1988),
the term also referred to the structure of
particular
languages. In the latter sense it
typically
referenced Latin but
came increasingly to include and eventually to mean English grammar. A
distinction was drawn, as by Lowth (1762: 1), between particular and uni-
versal
grammar: 'The Grammar of any particular
Language,
as the English
Grammar, applies those common principles [of Universal Grammar] to
that
particular
language,
according to the established usage and custom of
it'.
Grammar
typically
comprised four
levels:
orthography, etymology,

syntax,
and prosody (e.g. Fisher
1750;
Johnson 1755; Priestley
1761;
Ward
1765;
Murray 1795;
Cobbett
1823; Webster
1828).
To cite Priesdey's
characterisations of these levels (though the words were not original with
him),
orthography is 'the art of combining letters into
syllables,
and
sylla-
bles
into words'; etymology 'the deduction of one word from another, and
the various modifications by which the meaning of the same word is diver-
sified';
syntax 'the
proper
construction of words, or the method of joining
them together in sentences'; and prosody 'the rules of pronunciation, and
of versification'. Reflecting the influence of Latin, English grammars of
the period concentrated particularly on etymology, which included inflec-
tional morphology and occasional elements of word derivation, as
well

as
the
analysis
of historical roots, though this last was little pursued in school
grammars.
Grammars of the second half of the eighteenth century and the first
half
of the nineteenth are
relatively
uniform in aim and scope. As defined
by
Johnson (1755) and Priesdey
(1761:
1), grammar is 'the art of using
words properly'; by Lowth (1762: 1), 'the art of righdy expressing our
thoughts by words'; by Fell
(1784:1),
'the Art of Speaking and Writing the
English Language, agreeably to the established usage of the best and
most
approved Speakers and Writers'; by Murray (1795: 1), 'the art of speaking
and writing the English
language
with propriety'. Generally
it
was
conceded
that
one studied grammar in order to 'learn to speak and write properly and
correcdy' (Fisher 1750: 1). As

Cobbett
(1823: 4) succincdy put it,
'Grammar . . . teaches us
how
to
make
use
of
words
in a
proper
manner'.
Thus, notions of 'propriety'
—
proper,
right, agreeable, correct
—
defined
the study of English in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
543
Edward Finegan
If Priesdey
(1761:
v) sought as
well
'to
give
the youth of our nation an
insight
into the fundamental

principles
of their own
language',
that goal set
him apart from his contemporaries. For nearly all grammarians the study
of English had practical rather than intellectual motivation.
The utilitarian philosophy underlying the study of English grammar
finds
striking
exemplification in the grammar of
William
Cobbett.
Cobbett
(1762-1835)
was
born
in England and died there but resided in
North
America from time to time. In 1817, following imprisonment in
England, he returned to New York and a
short
while later published a
grammar, drafted as a series of letters to his son. (The grammar has been
republished several times and saw three editions even in the 1980s.) As a
soldier
Cobbett had schooled himself by memorising sections of Lowth's
grammar, and he subsequendy became a noted writer on agricultural and
political
subjects. He explained the importance of grammar to his son
and the 'soldiers, sailors, apprentices and plough-boys' he was also

addressing:
In order to obtain the co-operation, the concurrence, or the
consent,
of
others, we
must
communicate
our
thoughts
to them. The
means
of this
communication
are
words;
and grammar
teaches
us
how
to
make
use
of
words
But. . . my dear son, there is one motive,
which
. . .
ought
to be
strongly felt in an extraordinary degree: I mean, that desire,

which
every
man, and
especially
every
young
man,
should
entertain to be able
to assert with effect the rights and liberties of his country . . . you will
find,
that
tyranny
has
no
enemy
so formidable as the pen. (1823:4)
As
for providing insight into the fundamental principles of language, as
Priesdey
had intended for grammar, Cobbett spurned such inutility as a
waste
of time for his labouring readers, as illustrated by his
analysis
of
derived
forms
like
thankful
and

thankless
of what
use
to us to enter on, and
spend
our time in, inquiries of mere
curiosity? It is for monks, and for
Fellows
of
English
Colleges, who live
by the sweat of other
people's
brows, to
spend
their time in this manner,
and to call the results of their
studies
learning,
for you, who will have to
earn
what you eat and what you drink and what you wear, it is to avoid
every
thing
that
tends
not to
real
utility.
(1823:55)

Cobbett saw grammar as a
political
and economic tool to be used for fight-
ing
oppression. In this his aims and motivation differed notably from the
pious aims of many predecessors and contemporaries, though he shared
with
them a belief in the utility of knowing grammar.
544
English grammar and usage
6.2.3 The
doctrine
of
correctness
Present-day analysts routinely distinguish between prescriptive and
descriptive approaches to grammar and sometimes contrast eighteenth-
century prescriptivism with twentieth-century descriptivism. This distinc-
tion corresponds roughly to the one made by Campbell between grammar
and verbal criticism. Descriptivism aims to characterise actual usage; pre-
scriptivism aims to evaluate actual usage and to make recommendations
based on any of a number of possible criteria. But the distinction
is
in some
ways
an exaggerated one. For one thing, the act of descriptively recording
and disseminating particular language varieties or language forms tends in
itself
to prescribe their use. Grammars or dictionaries of
'the
English lan-

guage'
tend to compel adherence among all who would lay claim to speak-
ing or writing English. For another, at least since the time of Priscian,
grammar has been conventionally defined as the art of speaking and
writing correcdy or properly, as Fisher, Johnson, Priesdey, Lowth, Murray,
and
Cobbett
continued to define it. Historically,
then,
the
raison
d
y
etre
of
grammar has been prescription (Michael
1970:189),
and today's pedagog-
ical
grammars inevitably remain prescriptive to a greater or lesser degree
(Quirk
1968).
Further,
even descriptivists elect which aspects of grammar
and lexicon to codify, skirting aspects of usage
that
they may regard as con-
troversial or unsetded. Finally, it is noteworthy
that
in the final quarter of

the twentieth century many publishers and learned societies, even societies
of linguists
(usually
the staunchest antagonists of prescription) have pro-
scribed certain nominal and pronominal usages, in pursuit of egalitarian
social
goals rather than the religious or moral goals acceptable in an earlier
age.
Despite Campbell's exhortations, pure description of language use is
a
recent and more abstruse enterprise than prescription, and it is carried
out by and for scholars
typically
treating languages remote from their own
and often lacking traditions of literacy. The simple fact seems to be
that
scholars of diverse stripes sometimes experience difficulty writing pure
descriptions of their own language.
Eighteenth-century English grammarians have been characterised as
subscribin
g to a 'doctrine of correctness' (Leonard
1929).
Simply put, this
doctrine claims
that
every expression is either correct or incorrect and
that
alternative expressions for the same meaning or function cannot
both
be

correct. In attempting to regulate the vernacular and limit variation in
lin-
guistic
form, a general inclination prevailed to regard variant forms for the
same meaning or function as unacceptable. Priesdey
(1761:
47) recognised
that
'of the vast number of synonymous terms in which every cultivated
545
Edward Finegan
language
abounds, no two of them convey precisely the same idea', but his
point was not
widely
appreciated, and common practice betrayed many a
grammarian's discomfort with variant
usages.
Even Priesdey
(1761:
vi)
allowed
that
language,
to answer the intent of it, which is to express our
thoughts with certainty in an intercourse with one another, must be fixed
and consistent with itself, and his 'must' suggests some
leeway
for analysts
to make alterations and eliminate inconsistencies.

6.2.4 The
authority
of
custom
and the role of
analogy
A profession of faith in the supreme authority of usage graces most eight-
eenth-century and
early
nineteenth-century grammars and rhetorics.
Illustrative
is Campbell's
(1776:140-1)
definition of grammar as:
a
collection
of general observations methodically
digested,
and
com-
prising
all
the
modes
previously and independendy
established,
by
which
the
significations,

derivations, and
combinations
of words in that lan-
guage
are ascertained. It is of no
consequence
to what
causes
origi-
nally
these
modes
or fashions owe their
existence,
to imitation, to
reflection, to affectation,
or
to caprice; they no sooner obtain and
become
general, than they are laws of the language, and the grammarian's only
business
is to note,
collect,
and
methodize
them

Only let us rest in
these
as fixed principles, that use, or the

custom
of
Speaking, is the
sole
original standard of conversation, as far as regards
the expression, and the
custom
of writing
is
the
sole
standard of style
that to the tribunal of use, as to the supreme authority, and
consequendy,
in
every
grammatical controversy, the last
resort,
we
are
entitied
to appeal
from the laws and the
decisions
of grammarians; and that this order of
subordination
ought
never, on any account, to be reversed.
In determining grammatical correctness, then, for Campbell and for
man

y others 'the supreme authority' and 'the last resort' was 'the tribunal
of use'. But, as we saw in section
6.2.1,
in elaborating the notion of 'use'
or 'custom' Campbell endorsed 'reputable custom'
—
the usage of
'cele-
brated authors' and not that of
general
use.
The position of Bishop Lowth
was
more regulated. Despite a perfunctory nod in the direction of custom,
he judged its guidance inadequate: 'Much practice in the polite world, and
a
general acquaintance with the best authors .
will
hardly be sufficient'.
Only knowledge of the rules of grammar would ensure proper and accu-
rate expression, and even 'our best Authors for want of some rudiments
of this kind have sometimes fallen into mistakes, and been
guilty
of palpa-
ble
errors in point of Grammar'. Lowth so discounted the role of custom
546
English grammar and usage
or usage and so elevated
c

the
rules of grammar'
that
he could say about
particular
features (in this instance about the phrase by
observing
instead of
by
THE observing)
that
'there are hardly any of our Writers, who have not
fallen
into this inaccuracy'. Given a milieu in which usage was placed on a
theoretical pedestal only to be ignored in practice, it is no surprise to find
Lowth (1762: 121) judging certain phrases 'somewhat defective', though
'pretty common and authorised by Custom'. For him, custom was
expressly
subordinate to the rules of grammar.
Even Priesdey, more faithful to the authority of usage than any of his
contemporaries
, allowed the practice of 'good authors' only a limited role
where different authors exhibited different practices. For him analogy
ranked higher than
usage:
'since good authors have adopted different forms
of speech, and in a case
that
admits of no standard but
that

of
custom,
one
authority may be of as much weight as another; the
analogy
of
language
is
the
only
thing to which we can have recourse, to adjust these differences'
(1761:
vi).
(By analogy he meant the parallel between an expression and some
established
general pattern or paradigm.) Like
other
grammarians of the
time,
Priesdey
denied
that
differing
usages
could be
equally
acceptable even
when used by equally reputable authors. Despite his conviction
that
the

best forms of speech would establish themselves by their own superiority,
his
practice permitted an intervening role for
analogical
reasoning. In prin-
ciple
custom ranked highest in deciding questions of grammar, but when
custom offered competing patterns, as it often did, he invoked analogy to
exclude
all but one. Only where analogy could not resolve an issue because
existing
patterns supported more than one preference could it be left to
time to setde the issue.
In deciding particular points,
other
grammarians also deferred to
analogy
and sometimes to logic and sometimes to the history of a word
(what might be
called
its
'etymologic').
In practice, if not
always
in theory,
grammarians of this period shared a disposition to reject alternative usages
as
equally
correct. If
shall

is
right in this usage,
mil
must be wrong; if
among
serves
several,
between
must be limited to two, as its etymology might be
taken to dictate.
6.2.5
Latin
grammar
influences
English
grammar
Despite the triumph of English in all domains of use, Latin grammar con-
tinued to cast a long shadow over the grammatical
analysis
of the vernacu-
lar.
In part the influence of Latin followed from its being perceived as an
exemplar
of universal grammar par excellence; it was only natural,
then,
547
Edward Finegan
that
grammarians were inclined to impose the Procrustean bed of Latin
structure on their analyses of English. Some grammarians objected

strongly, though. Webster alleged
that
certain grammars were little more
than translations of Latin ones: the declensions and conjugations of Latin
had been erased, as it were, leaving their English equivalents
laid
out on the
page as
fully
as they had been as glosses to the Latin paradigms. Grammars
of English thus wound up exhibiting paradigms
that
better exemplified the
inflected nominal and verbal systems of the
classical
language than its own
inflectionally
reduced declensions and conjugations. Such classical para-
digms
disguised English structures in Latin garb and provided sometimes
deliberate, sometimes unwitting insight into the structure of the classical
tongue while obscuring the character of the vernacular one.
As
an illustration consider
that
in the second quarter of the eighteenth
century John Stirling had
laid
out the English adjective
wise

in a paradigm
with no fewer than thirty-six
cells,
representing six cases in three genders,
both
singular and plural. In
that
paradigm all thirty-six occurrences of
wise
were,
of course, identical. The thirty-six
cells
represented possible inflec-
tional variants of the Latin paradigm. They had no relation to English and
might as
well
have been 136. To represent the English facts, just one cell
would be needed. As late as 1780,
Wells
Egelsham declined the invariant
English article for
both
case and number (Michael 1987:
318-9).
Even the
largely
original grammar by Ward (1765: 336) presents English
noun
para-
digms

that
assign the customary names of the six Latin cases, as shown:
Singular
Plural
Nominative
the king
the kings
Genitive
of the king of the kings
the king's
Dative
to the king to the kings
Accusative
the king
the kings
Vocative
o king o kings
Ablative
by the king
by the kings
Such a format suited Latin nouns, which can be inflected for several cases
i
n the singular and plural (theoretically
yielding
up to twelve different forms
—
rex,
regis,
regi,
regem,

etc.
—
although the various declensions had merged
some case endings). It does not make sense, though, for English with only
four (written)
noun
forms
(king,
king's, kings,
kings').
The Latin paradigm
justified
twelve entries for up to twelve
noun
forms. By the same
logic,
English required a mere four because its nouns distinguish singulars from
548
English
grammar
and usage
plurals
(child/children)
and possessive (or 'genitive') case from a general
unmarked
form
(child's/child
and
children's/children).
The somewhat more

diverse
system of English pronouns (with three case forms as in the
first-
person singular /,
mine,
me and plural we,
ours,
us) would match the Latin
paradigm better but not well. Doubdess the germination of English
nominal,
verbal,
and adjectival paradigms in the gardens of Latin morpho-
logical analysis and the contemporary understanding of universal and
par-
ticular
grammar
helps account for the assertion heard even to the present
day
that nothing iUuminates English
grammar
like the study of Latin. The
observation made by a young schoolmaster toward the end of the eight-
eenth century has had
echoes
at the end of the twentieth:
We are apt
to be
surprised,
that
men who made the languages

their
prin-
cipal study . . . should not discover that the
Grammar
of one language
would not
answer
for
another;
but our
wonder
will
cease
when
we
reflect,
that
the English nation at
large
have, till
very
lately,
entertained the idea
that
our language was incapable of being reduced to a system of rules;
and
that
even now
many
men of much classical learning

warmly
contend
that
the only
way
of acquiring,
a
grammatical knowledge of the
English
Tongue,
is
first
to
learn
a
Latin Grammar.
That such
a
stupid opinion should
ever
have
prevailed
in the English nation -
that
it-should still
have
advo-
cates -
nay
that

it
should
still
be
carried
into
practice,
can be
resolved
into
no cause but the amazing influence of habit upon the human mind.
(Webster
1784: 3)
Increasingly, though, observers on both
sides
of the Adantic successfully
resisted imposing Latin structure on the analysis of English.
A by-product of modelling English grammars on Latin exemplars that
me
t
less
resistance was the practice of exercises in 'false syntax', which
offered
made-up examples for analysis and correction.
Used
routinely
in the
teaching of Latin, where the case inflections on nouns served
%o
express

grammatical relations such as subject and direct object, the practice of
exhibiting fanciful specimens of false syntax in native language instruction
is credited to Fisher
(1750).
Among a kind she called 'promiscuous' can be
found sentences like those below, which violate rules of agreement or
concord or doubly
mark
the superlative degree of the adjective:
The minister preaches, but sinners hears not.
Tho
u and me is both accused of the same fault.
The men drink
heartily,
and eats sparingly.
Prudent
men forsees evil, but the simple pass on and is punished.
The lyon is accounted the most strongest and most generous of
all
brute creatures.
549
Edward Finegan
Such
'promiscuous' examples of 'false syntax' larded many grammars
but struck at least one contemporary as bizarre. Not surprisingly it was
Priesdey
(1761:
xi),
who observed
that

he would have included such exam-
ples
if they did not 'make so
uncouth
an appearance in print'. For the
most
part, though, grammarians shared Murray's
(1795:
iv-v) influential view
that
'a
proper
selection of faulty composition is more instructive to the
young grammarian, than any rules and examples of propriety
that
can be
given'.
From
the
earliest
influential grammars,
then,
pupils were required to
judge
fictitious sentences as to which rule they violated and
then
to recast
them in conformity to its dictates.
6.2.6
Writing

and
speech
Lowth (1762: 2) judged letters the 'first principles' of words, and in an age
when recorded speech was unimaginable and writing alone promised
permanence, it
was
perhaps only natural
that
the written word served as the
model for speaking. Today, scholars view speech as fundamental, as the
ground of
writing.
In the eighteenth century the relationship between these
modes of expression was understood differendy, and orthography, now
discarded as a branch of grammar, was
then
an integral part of it.
Although the relationship between speech and writing was generally
agreed
by grammarians and lexicographers of the period, it did not much
concern them. Few perceived the matter as starkly as Thomas Sheridan
(1762:
7),
who noted
that:
we
have in use two different kinds of
language,
which have no
sort

of
affinity
between them, but what custom has established; and which are
communicated
thro'
different organs But these two kinds of language
are
so
early
in
life
associated,
that
it
is
difficult ever after to separate them;
or not to suppose
that
there
is
some kind of natural connection between
them.
The difficulty of dissociating speech and writing showed itself in grammar
afte
r grammar. Typical was Fisher (1750: 5), who not only did not keep
letters and sounds distinct but saw writing as underlying speech: A vowel
is
a letter, which, without the help of any
other
letter joined to it,

doth,
by
itself, denote a perfect sound, and often alone makes a perfect
syllable'.
For
Fisher as for
most
there were the traditional alphabetic vowels a, e
y
/, o, u
(and sometimes
j),
each with two realisations, a long and a
short.
Written
language
provided models of usage in theory and in practice for
most
eighteenth-century codifiers. Even those who might have wished to
rely
on speech would have been obliged to do so from memory or notes
550
English grammar and usage
made in haste, thereby subjecting their citations to contest in
ways
in which
written ones would not be. Moreover, reliance on speech would have given
codifiers
excessive latitude in choosing authorities. With Lowth (1762: 52)
grammarians were on safer ground citing as 'great authorities' Milton,

Dryden, Addison, Prior, and Pope, whose written usage could be verified.
Thus, with respect to lexicon, morphology, and syntax, the consensus held
that
written
English was to be codified.
With respect to pronunciation, there was no consensus. A great deal
abou
t eighteenth-century views can be learned from Defoe's
report
of a
visit
he made to a schoolroom in Somerset, where a pupil
was
reading aloud
from the
Bible:
I observed also the Boy read it out with his Eyes
still
on the Book, and
his
Head,
like
a mere
Boy,
moving from
Side
to
Side,
as the lines reached
cross the Columns of the Book: His Lesson was in the

Canticles
of
Solomon\
the Words these;
1 have put off
my
Coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my Feet;
how shall I defile them?' The Boy read thus, with his Eyes, as I say, full
on the Text: 'Chav a doffed my
Coot;
how shall I don't? Chav a washed
my
Feet; how shall I moil 'em?'
How the dexterous
Dunce
could form
his
Mouth to express so
readily
the Words (which
stood
right printed in the
Book)
in
his
Country
Jargon,
I
could
not but

admire.
(From
Tucker:
1961.
61-2)
Defoe's astonishment (as
admire
here suggests) underscores his view
that
pronunciation ought to be based
upon
spelling and
that
spelling should be
independent of local pronunciations. Some codifiers, Johnson among
them,
promoted
spelling
pronunciations: 'the best rule
is,
to consider those
as
the
most
elegant speakers who deviate least from the written words'. But
standards varied greatly.
6.2.7
Dialects
Knowledge of dialect variation in the eighteenth and
early

nineteenth cen-
turies was incidental and unsystematic. Regional differences were recog-
nised, and here and there in grammars and rhetorics appeared mention of
country jargon, Irish brogue, American accents, jouring (as
Defoe
called
the speech of Somerset), and others, and comments were almost
invariably
unfavorable. In the preface to his
General Dictionary
of 1780, Sheridan
observed
that
'not only the natives of Ireland, Scodand, and
Wales,
who
speak English, and are taught to read it,
pronounce
it differendy, but each
county in England has its peculiar dialect, which infects not only their
551
Edward Finegan
speech, but their reading also'. Sheridan's metaphorical 'infection' reveals
his
disdain for regional dialects, much as Defoe's description revealed his
(see
Ihalainen 1994 for views of dialects during this period).
Even
the tide
pages

of some grammars alluded to the disfavoured status of certain
regional
or national
varieties,
though preoccupation with dialects was more
prevalent in America, where xenophobic fear of contamination by
other
tongues was greater
than
in
Britain.
Besides regional
dialects,
social dialects
were
also recognised but, again, not
systematically.
Cockney was known,
and occasional reference made to the language of lower orders'.
6.2.8
Language
and
morality
At this stage any explicit link between morality and dialect such as later
characterised Victorian Britain remained muted.
Still,
a generalised associa-
tion between language use and morality did exist and is not surprising,
given
the pious dispositions and

religious
employments so
common
among
grammarians and rhetoricians of the age. Some were high-ranking clerics
or prelates and many experienced a sense of divine presence in their
lives.
Even
some of the nonclerics wrote on
religious
as
well
as grammatical sub-
jects:
for example, Fisher on The
Child's
Christian Education
and Murray on
The
Power
of
Religion
on
the
Mind, in
Retirement,
Affliction
and at
the
Approach

of
Death
(already in its sixth edition when his grammar appeared in
1795).
Among the clerics can be counted Swift, Lowth, and Priestley. Equally
telling,
the contents of the grammars exhibit what by today's standards
must be deemed
excessively
pious sentiments.
Often
the examples of false
syntax
constituted mini-sermons: besides grammatical points they pro-
vided
moral lessons and pious exhortation. Priestley
(1761:
65), who
expressly
sought to provide insight into linguistic principles, nevertheless
chose passages 'calculated for the use of youth, tending
both
to lead them
into a just and manly taste in composition, and also to impress their minds
with the sense of what is rational, useful, and ornamental in their temper,
and conduct in
life'.
Like many others he included scriptural
passages,
not

for their grammatical aptness alone but for their 'excellent moral uses' as
well.
Murray, in his preface, claimed to have 'no interest' in the grammar
but 'endeavouring to
promote
the cause of learning and virtue' and said he
had been 'studious not only to avoid
all
examples and illustrations which
might have an improper effect on the minds of youth; but also to introduce,
on many occasions, such as have a moral and religious tendency'.
Significantly,
then,
and not only for Murray, 'learning and virtue' were
intertwined, and the perception did not lag far behind
that
the language of
552
English grammar and usage
the lower classes lacked
both
- for grammarians tended to view variant
usages
not merely as different but as faulty and corrupt. If writers and
speakers were seen as
'guilty'
of 'faults', as using 'improper' forms, and as
displaying
'great impropriety' and 'barbarous corruption', to cite a few of
Bishop Lowth's epithets, the link that Murray established between 'learn-

ing and virtue' left the uneducated and the
poor
in a decidedly precarious
moral position.
6.2.9
Stylistic
and
register
variation
Some codifiers showed a sensitivity to the appropriateness of expressions
in
different circumstances. Campbell refers to 'professional dialects', such
as
commercial idiom and medical cant. Priestley
(1761:50-1),
in an unusual
chapter called 'Observations on
style',
noted about sentence-final preposi-
tions:
It
is
often
really
diverting to
see
with what extreme caution words of such
frequent occurrence as
of
and

to
are prevented from fixing themselves in
the close of a sentence; though that be a situation they naturally incline
to, where they favour the
easy
fall
of the
voice,
in a familiar cadence; and
from which nothing but the solemnity of an address from the pulpit
ought to dislodge them; as in any other place they often
give
too great a
stiffness and formality to a sentence.
With a clear grasp of the different functions that speech and writing typi-
cally
serve, Priestley
(1761:
45-6) noted that The use of writing, as of
speaking,
is to express our thoughts with certainty and perspicuity. But as
writing
is
a permanent thing, it is requisite that
written
forms of speech have
a
greater degree of precision and perspicuity than is necessary in
colloquial
forms, or such as very

well
answer the purpose of common conversation.'
He added that 'The ease of conversation seems, in some
cases,
to require
a
relaxation of the severer
laws
of Grammar For instance, who, in
common conversation, would scruple to say,
"who
is
thisfor
999
;
or
where
learnt
thou this;
rather than,
whom is thisfor,
or,
where
learnedst
thou this
9
In a similar
vein,
Home
Tooke

(1798:
232) discussed the preference in
legal
discourse
for repeating nouns rather than using pronouns. Expressing sentiments
that have lost
none
of their pertinence two centuries later, he observed that
'legal
instruments . . . have
always
been, and
always
must be, remarkably
more tedious and prolix than any other
writings,
in which the same clear-
ness and precision are not
equally
important In common discourse we
save
time by using the
short
substitutes HE and SHE and THEY and IT;
553
Edward Finegan
and they answer our purpose very
well
But this substitution
will

not
be risqued in a
legal
instrument . . .' Despite such sporadic comments,
however, little was known about the systematic relations of one style or
register
to another, and no established framework of language varieties
existed
in which to situate the codification of grammar and lexicon.
6.2.10
Home
Tooke
and
the
Diversions of Purley
Exercising extraordinary influence on the study of usage in the nineteenth
centur
y was the philosophical grammar of John
Home
Tooke
(1736-1812),
first published in 1786. Called the
Diversions
of
Purley,
it took
the form of a conversation among William Tooke (owner of an estate
called
Purley, where the conversation
occurs),

John
Home
Tooke himself,
and Richard Beadon (Bishop of Gloucester and a guest at
Purley).
EIIEA
TITEPOENTA ('on winged
words'),
as the
Diversions is
actually titled, con-
stitutes a lengthy and imaginative speculative treatise about the relation of
words to things and to other words. The conversation serves as a platform
for
Home
Tooke's central notion that nouns and verbs are the basic parts
of speech, all words in other classes arising merely as abbreviations of
them.
Early in the discussion at Purley,
Home
Tooke tells his interlocutors, 'I
consider [Grammar] as absolutely necessary in the search after philosophi-
cal
truth
. And I think it no less necessary in the most important ques-
tions concerning religion and
civil
society' (1798: 5). Herein
lies
the

importance of
Home
Tooke, for he argues that grammar - in particular
etymology
- is essential to the pursuit of philosophical,
religious,
and civic
truths. He adds that he found it 'impossible to make many steps in the
search after
truth
and the nature of
human
understanding,
of
good
and
evil,
of
right
and
wrong,
without well considering the nature of
language',
which he
thought 'inseparably connected with them'
(1798:12).
Admitting disagree-
ment with 'all those who with such infinite labour and erudition have gone
before me on this subject'
(1798:14),

he reviewed the relationship between
signs
and the things they signify and sketched how various philosophical
approaches have led to differences in the numbers and kinds of the parts
of speech before and since the time of Aristotle. Crucially for his theory,
Home
Tooke argued that words are not
always
signs of things or ideas but
often represent other words, as shorthand would. 'The first aim of
Language
was
to
communicate
our thoughts: the second, to do
it
with
dispatch',
and the chief cause of the variety of words is to enable the tongue to
keep pace with the mind by use of 'winged' words (1798:
27—9).
These
554
English grammar and usage
'abbreviations' constitute the pivotal notion of
Home
Tooke's theory of
language,
and the
Diversions

of
Purley
details
his derivation of English words
from their original, unabbreviated roots.
To illustrate the argument that informs the
Diversions,
consider its fanci-
ful derivation of the preposition by from the Old English imperative verb
form byS of
beon
or of
beneath
from the imperative verb be compounded
with the (lost)
noun
neath,
which in
turn
Home
Tooke related to
nether'and
nethermost
(1798:
405-6).
Under,
with the same meaning as
beneath,
he
derived from on

neder
(1798:
408), while
head
and
heaven
are 'evidently the
past participles of the verb to
Heave';
indeed, 'the names of
all
abstract rela-
tion

are taken either from the adjectived common names of objects, or
from the participles of common verbs'
(1798:
453).
Home
Tooke thus
endeavoured to show that some particular
noun
or verb can be found at
the origin of every word and that each word has a core meaning, namely
the sense attached to its original
noun
or verb. Ridiculing the two dozen
meanings offered for the preposition
from
in Johnson's

Dictionary,
Home
Tooke argues that in all instances
from
'continues to retain invariably one
and the same single meaning', namely 'beginning'.
Unaware of the philological ferment around him (see section
6.3.1),
Home
Tooke's etymologies are speculative associations, not philological
reconstructions. In fact, he insulated his philosophy from empirical con-
straints
both
in theory and in practice. Because his theory preceded his ety-
mologies,
the former could not be challenged by questioning the latter: 'it
was
general reasoning
a priori,
that led me to the particular instances; not
particular instances to the general reasoning'.
This Etymology, against whose fascination you would have me guard
myself
, did not occur to me
till
many
years
after my system was settled:
and it occurred to me suddenly, in this manner;
—

'If my reasoning con-
cerning these conjunctions is
well
founded, there must then be in the
original
language
from which the English (and so of
all
other
languages)
is
derived,
literally
such
and
such
words bearing precisely
such
and
such
significations.'
—
I was the more pleased with this suggestion, because I
was
entirely ignorant even of the Anglo-saxon and
Gothic
characters:
and the experiment presented to me a mean, either of disabusing
myself
from error or of obtaining a confirmation sufficiently strong to

encourage me to believe that I had
really
made a discovery.
(1798:131-2)
Given contemporary widespread interest in the relationship between
words and the mind,
Home
Tooke's metaphysical approach to language
won the day. All Britain seemed inclined to agree that he had made a
555
Edward Finegan
genuine discovery, and fascination with the number and nature of the parts
of speech held centre stage in the philological theatre of Britain (and
exerted influence in
North
America, as
well).
Home
Tooke's concerns and
speculative
methods engaged the more philosophical grammarians and
some prominent lexicographers for decades after the
turn
of the century,
and preoccupation with his etymologies insulated Britain from the incipi-
ent comparative and historical linguistics that was stimulating solid
philological
learning
particularly
in Germany and

Scandinavia.
Today, a
lin-
guistically
trained reader finds nothing of etymological value in the
Diversions.
But on the positive side the book helped dislodge belief in the
direct, non-arbitrary connection between words and things that James
Harris had argued for in
Hermes,
a much admired grammar that Lowth
called
'the most beautiful and perfect example of
analysis
since the days
of
Aristotle*.
On the negative side, and more to our purposes,
Home
Tooke's approach to etymology
—
utterly fanciful though it was
—
exercised
a
profound decades-long influence on linguistic thinking generally and
views
of English usage in particular, as we shall see in section 6.3.
6.2.11
SamuelJohnsons

Dictionary
It is not within the scope of this chapter to discuss in detail the contribu-
tions
made by
Samuel
Johnson (1755) or
Noah
Webster
(1828)
in their dic-
tionaries. The initial publication of Johnson's dictionary preceded the
period under discussion here, and Webster
is
treated in volume VI.
Still,
the
importance of these lexicographers requires brief mention.
In the codification of English during the eighteenth century the publica-
tion of Johnson's dictionary stands out above all other events, and a good
deal
has been written about
both
the lexicographer and his lexicon (cf.
Sledd
& Kolb 1955; Reddick
1996).
Germane here is the fact that Johnson
relied
heavily on citations of actual usage in arriving at and illustrating his
definitions. Among its 40,000 entries, the dictionary's impressive 114,000

citations signal a significant advance in lexicography and a noteworthy
commitment to the centrality of usage in ascertaining and codifying the
language.
By way of illustration, part of the entry for
between
from
Johnson's
Dictionary
of
the
English
Language
(1755) is provided below:
6.
Between
is properly used of two, and
among
of more; but perhaps this
accuracy
is
not
always
preserved.
While
Johnson provides no citations for this particular use, for other senses
and uses he provides citations from Pope, Bacon, Locke, and others.
556
English grammar and usage
Not everyone regarded Johnson's use of citations favourably, and among
those who judged them excessive was Webster, who criticised them in the

introduction to his
American
Dictionary
(1828)
some seventy
years
later:
One of the
most
objectionable parts of Johnson's Dictionary is the
great
number of passages cited from authors, to exemplify his defini-
tions. Most English words are so
familiarly
and perfecdy understood,
and the sense of them so little
liable
to be
called
in question,
that
they
may
be
safely
left to rest on the authority of the lexicographer, without
examples

In
most

cases,
one example is sufficient to illustrate the meaning of a
word; and this is not absolutely necessary, except in cases where the
signification
is a deviation from the plain literal sense, a particular
application of the term; or in a
case,
where the sense of the word may be
doubtful, and of questionable authority. Numerous citations serve to
swell
the size of a Dictionary, without any adequate advantage.
In the two decades needed to prepare his
American
Dictionary,
much of
Webster's energy attended etymology. Although he disavowed
Home
Tooke and denied him any influence on the 1828 dictionary, he had earlier
credited him with 'discovery of the true theory of the construction of lan-
guage'
and had accepted the likelihood
that
'the
noun
or substantive is the
principal part of speech from which
most
words are
originally
derived'

(1789:
182). Etymology is an aspect of the story of correctness
that
is far
more significant than many accounts indicate, and we consider it further in
the following sections.
6.3
Second
period:
1830-1930
We
focus here on the century between 1830 and 1930, with scope to
examine
the OED from inspiration to publication. Genuine knowledge of
the new
philological
learning started in Britain around 1830 and
is
manifest
in
the
New
English
Dictionary on Historical
Principles,
whose actual publication
stretched from 1884 to 1928. Examining a century-long period inevitably
encompasses distinct, even contradictory trends, and alongside the broad,
soundly empirical and gentle scholarship of the OED and
other

philologi-
cal
learning
lies
the narrow, fanciful and sometimes strident pedantry of
some Victorian handbooks. Alongside the triumph of usage in the citations
and
analysis
of the OED, the nineteenth century
witnessed
its practical and
theoretical repudiation in contemporary handbooks and school grammars.
Whereas
actual usage was given a place of
honour
in the dictionary, it was
rejected
as
valid
evidence of acceptability by prescriptive grammarians and
557