14 The Original Grammar Police: The 18th-Century Construction of “Proper” English

Choosing one’s words can be a source of anxiety, especially in academic or business settings. Both those who grew up speaking English and those who have learned it as an additional language often feel pressure to speak and write so-called “proper” English in order to be taken seriously. Awareness of the connections between varieties of English and social class or region has a long history in Britain, but the idea of a “correct” form of English gained prominence at one specific time and in a specific place: 18th-century London, England. Due to factors described below, the 18th century saw a surge of interest in establishing rules for how English should be written and spoken: a project now described as Standard Language Ideology (SLI) (Curzan, 2014; Lippi-Green, 2012). This paper argues that understanding the historical roots of SLI helps us recognize that what people often think of as “correct” English is a construct—that is, an idealized way of speaking or writing that has little relationship to how people actually speak and write. Such an understanding reminds us that the many other varieties of English spoken today are just as vibrant as—and perhaps even more useful than—the English commonly taught in schools and expected in university-level writing.

18th-century England was characterized by massive social change. The number of people living in cities grew faster than ever before, with the city of London more than doubling its population over the course of the century (Hickey, 2010, p. 9). Those arriving from other regions of England and from Scotland, Wales, and Ireland brought their own distinct languages and their own forms of English. The second half of the 18th century also saw the arrival of enslaved people of colour from colonized lands in the Caribbean and West Indies, brought to England to provide forced labour in the households of their enslavers (Sharpe, 2000, p. 520). These displaced individuals brought even more language variety to London. The number of people speaking English globally more than doubled at this time as a result of colonial expansion, travel, and trade (Bailey, 2010, p. 185). Travellers often brought back new versions of English influenced by other cultures and languages, adding even more variation to the types of English heard in the streets of London. Different forms of English, spoken in different areas of the country and the world, were mingling with each other like never before.

One response to this increase in language variety was unease, especially from people who feared forms of speaking and writing that they were unfamiliar with. The writer Jonathan Swift (1712) proposed creating an academy to correct what he saw as the “Corruptions” of the language (p. 8). In 1747, the writer Samuel Johnson published The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language, which announced his intention to create a dictionary of English that would establish the meaning of English words once and for all to prevent further change. Of course, any attempt to establish one “proper” form of English—often called Standard English today—must include a decision about which version of English should serve as the basis for it. For people like Swift and Johnson, the choice was clear: the version spoken by wealthy landowners born and raised in London would be the basis of Standard English. The century saw the publication of enormous numbers of books like grammar manuals and pronunciation guides promising to train readers to write and speak like rich Londoners. (See, for instance, John Newberry’s An Easy Introduction to the English Language [1745] and John Walker’s Critical Pronouncing Dictionary [1791].) Such books are described as “prescriptivist” because they aim to “prescribe” (that is, to dictate) the way people use a language. Much of the English enshrined today in dictionaries and grammar manuals, and in expectations for academic writing, can be traced back to the language of the 18th-century elite.

The decision to use the English of the London rich as the standard was not a reflection of any superior clarity or value in that dialect. Rather, the choice reflected an exertion of class privilege and power that assumed that other forms of English were inferior and treated them as such. By pressuring users of other varieties of English to adopt their version, 18th-century prescriptivists tried to preserve a system of social class that artificially elevated wealthy Londoners over other groups. In other words, the prescriptivists were the original grammar police, constructing what is often called “proper English.” They were also promoting “linguistic insecurity” among people who were not born into money but were trying to improve their circumstances (Labov, 2006). Indeed, members of the growing middle class such as shopkeepers, tradespeople, and lawyers responded by purchasing grammar manuals and pronunciation guides meant to teach them this “proper” English and thus improve their status and business opportunities (Beal, 2010).

A standard or “prestige” version of English continues to be used as a way to determine social, economic, and geographic mobility in a globalized world (Singh, 2013), with the International English Language Testing System exam being a primary example (Hamid et al., 2019). Nonetheless, there is now a growing acknowledgement of something that Samuel Johnson realized after completing his English dictionary in 1755: language is by its nature always shifting, and trying to fix, or “embalm,” it into one form is an impossible task (Johnson, 1755). Now, as in the 18th century, people use multiple varieties of English and make themselves understood in different ways depending on the context. Moreover, communication experts such as Heather Hansen (2018) have begun pointing out the usefulness of global Englishes—varieties of English that often have a more straightforward grammar and vocabulary than Standard English—as a means for businesspeople to communicate in a world that is increasingly multilingual. Looking back on the 18th century reminds us that the form of English that is prized by SLI stems from a variety that was singled out centuries ago not because of its clarity or practicality, but for its association with the upper classes. Today, instead of worrying about using one form of English because of linguistic snobbery and power-grabbing practised three hundred years ago, we can allow ourselves to embrace multiple forms, each with its own beauties, uses, and joys.

References

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Beal, J. (2010). Prescriptivism and the suppression of variation. In R. Hickey (Ed.), Eighteenth-century English (pp. 182–199). Cambridge University Press.

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Hansen, H. (2018, April). 2 billion voices: How to speak bad English perfectly [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/heather_hansen_2_billion_voices_how_to_speak_bad_english_perfectly

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