The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way

Index

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Aby-sel-pha (Dilworth), 169

Académie Française, 150, 166, 168

accents. See dialects

acronyms, 10

acrostics, 255–56

Adams, J. N., 240

Adams, John, 150

Adams, John Quincy, 150, 191

Addison, Joseph, 155

adjectives, 48, 59, 64, 76, 147

adverbs, 64, 157

affixes, 84, 85, 155

African languages, 21, 123–24

Afrikaans, 21

Agincourt, Battle of, 56

Ainu, 15–16

Aitchison, Jean, 101, 163–64

Albanian, 25, 77

Alcuin of York, 49

Alfred the Great, king of England, 56, 96–97

alphabet(s)

alternatives to, 126–30

Anglo-Saxon, 133

Cyrillic, 34

evolution of, 126–27, 133

Greek, 254

Oriental, 128–29

phonetic, 90, 119

phonographic, 140

Roman, 133

runic, 44, 133

syllabic, 128–29

Western, 34, 126–27

American Academy of

Language and Belles Lettres, 150, 151

American Dialect Society, 106

American dialects

black, 111, 123–25

British dialects vs., 102–3, 106–7, 184

broad vs. flat a sound in, 112, 172

Dixie, 109

East Coast, 93, 109, 111–13, 187

ethnic, 111, 114, 122–24, 186–87

“hillbillys,” 187

hypercorrection of foreign accents in, 114

impact of social isolation on, 108–9, 123–24, 185–88

main eastern divisions of, 107–13

Midland, 107, 111, 186

New England, 43, 107, 109, 111, 112, 114, 187

New York City, 111–12, 113

Northern, 107–13, 184, 185

relative uniformity of, 186–87

residual British traces in, 43, 99, 104–6, 111–12, 183, 187–90

Southern, 107–9, 112, 122–24, 187

suppressed r sound in, 113

An American Dictionary of the English Language (Webster), 170

American English

Australian English vs., 117

British adoption of, 189–95

British English vs.. See British English

diction and, 92–93

efforts at reform and improvement of, 150, 152, 191–92

impact of foreign languages on, 177–97, 269–72

national concerns about, 269–74

new words coined, 77–78, 180–84, 189–92

perceived inferior status of, 190–94

varieties of. See American dialects

The American Heritage Dictionary, 90, 130, 158, 162

The American Language (Mencken), 274

American Philological Association, 141

American Revolution, 103, 150, 183

The American Spelling Book (Webster), 170

American Talk: The Words and Ways of American Dialects (Hendrickson), 109, 111, 124

American Way, 250

Amerind, 16, 76

Amherst College, 172

Amish, 185–86

amphibology, 264

anagrams, 127, 252, 255, 256, 258

The Anatomy of Swearing (Montague), 240

Angles, 42–44, 96, 229

An Anglo-American Interpreter (Horwill), 195

Anglo-Norman, 51–56, 74, 76, 133–34

Anglo-Saxons, 44–53, 151

language of, 44, 47, 52–53, 57, 75, 77, 83, 133–34, 155, 169, 241

literacy achieved by, 133

pagan and primitive culture of, 44, 46

aphesis, 92

apocope, 92

apostrophes, 148

Armenian, 25, 77, 270

Arthur, King, 46

articles, 10, 30, 48, 63

Atlanta Constitution, 124

Atlantic, 254

Augarde, Tony, 254–55

Augustine, Saint, 47

Austen, Jane, 81

Australian English, 92, 115–16, 121, 274

Ayto, J., 165

Babbitt (Lewis), 195

Bacon, Francis, 66, 191, 256

Baddeley, Alan, 163

Bailey, Nathaniel, 167

Balfour, Arthur, 140n

Barber, C. L., 53, 63

Barnett, Lincoln, 55, 56, 99, 130, 161, 202, 273

Bartlett, John Russell, 185

Basic English, 213–14

Basque, 15, 16, 37, 74

Baugh, Albert C., 46, 53, 54, 66, 74, 85, 138, 151, 161, 168, 192, 211

BBC, 190, 202, 220

BBC Advisory Committee on Spoken English, 190

Bede, 32, 46, 48, 49, 56, 97

Behan, Brendan, 41

Belgium, 3, 35–36, 207, 270

Bell Telephone Laboratories, 91

Bellow, Saul, 270

Bentham, Jeremy, 79, 192

Beowulf, 43, 57

Bernstein, Theodore M., 133, 152,

157

Bible, 61, 137, 161, 170–72

translations of, 178, 192, 213

Bickerton, Derek, 20–22

bilingualism, 3, 31–32, 34–41, 269–70

Bill 101 (Canada), 36

Bleak House (Dickens), 81

Bonhours, Dominique, 159

Boontling, 264

Bopp, Franz, 23

Bord na Gaelige, 41

Boston Morning Post, 182

Bougalie, 123

Bowdler, Thomas, 246

Breton, 37, 39

British dialects, 117–22

American dialects vs., 43, 99, 104–6, 111–12, 184, 187–90

class distinctions in, 112, 118–20

East Midlands, 57–59, 60

London, 57–59, 60, 62, 92, 98, 118, 119–20, 187–88, 267

northern vs. southern, 43, 50, 57–58, 60, 63

study of, 119–20

varieties of, 43, 57–59, 106–7, 117–22, 134

British English, American English vs.

dialectic differences in, 43, 99, 104–6, 111–12, 183, 187–90

pronunciation differences in, 171–72, 188

spelling differences in, 100, 143, 170–72, 175–76, 194

swearing differences in, 250–51

usage differences in, 2, 66, 81, 86, 103, 155, 170–72, 184, 187–97, 246–47, 251, 274–75

British Isles, 46, 47, 58, 185

Brittany, 26, 46

Browning, Robert, 73–74

Bruce-Gardyne, Jock, 156

Bryant, William Cullen, 192

Burchfield, Robert, 2, 103, 274–75

works of, 9, 52n, 78, 83, 130, 148, 149, 183

Burger brothers, 264

Burnley, David, 59

Burns, Robert, 122

Bush, George, 152, 273

Butts, Alfred, 254

Cable, Thomas, 46, 53, 54, 66, 74, 85, 138, 151, 161, 168, 192, 211

Caedmon, 48

Caesar, Gaius Julius, 142

Cajun, 123–24, 187

Cambridge University, 58, 213, 219, 228

Canada, 16, 36–37, 117, 202, 270

The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer), 56, 58, 61, 243

Canute, king of England, 52

Cape Breton Island, 26

capitalization, 158, 260

Cardenio (Shakespeare), 65

Carlyle, Thomas, 79

Carnegie, Andrew, 141–42

Carroll, Lewis, 256

Carter, Jimmy, 152, 216

case forms, 29, 47

Cassidy, Frederic, 110

catachresis, 80–83

Catalan, 26, 37

cave paintings, 12, 13, 15

Cawdrey, Robert, 135

Caxton, William, 58, 59, 98, 137, 138

Ceausescu, Nicolae, 37

cedillas, 131

Celtic, 23, 26, 46, 51, 54, 121. See also Gaelic

Celts, 26, 42–46, 51

decline and dispersion of, 46, 54

Roman relations with, 44–45

sophisticated civilization of, 44–45

tribal vs. national character of, 26, 45

Census Bureau, U.S., 269

Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor, 27, 48–49

Charles II, king of England, 221

Charles, prince of Wales, 38, 119

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 55–56, 65, 81, 133, 138

language of, 58–62, 96–98, 138, 243

Cheers, 276

Chicago Tribune, 142

Chinese, 3, 16, 21

dialects of, 7, 89–90, 128, 201

writing of, 126–28, 140

Choctaw, 182

Chomsky, Noam, 18

Christianity, 47

Church of England, 47

Ciardi, John, 159

Cicero, 27, 226

circumflexes, 131

Civil War, U.S., 124, 175

Civilisation (Clark), 49

Claiborne, Robert, 117, 148

Clark, Kenneth, 49

clerihews, 256, 261

Cockney, 119, 266, 276

Cody, Buffalo Bill, 234

cognates, 16, 24

coins, 44

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 79, 155, 190

colloquialisms, 63, 78, 100

Columbus, Christopher, 32

Commissariat Général de la Langue Française, 206

Commission de Surveillance de la Langue Française, 36

Commission on Terminology, 206

Common Market, 39

A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (Webster), 170

computers, 2, 129, 164–65, 214–15

Concise Oxford Dictionary, 249

The Concise Scots Dictionary, 122

Condell, Henry, 65

Confucius, 128

Congress, U.S., 140, 150, 217

consonants, 32, 54, 90, 93, 131

Constitution, U.S., 184, 269

Cooke, Alistair, 270

Copperud, Roy H., 157

Cornish, 41

Cornwall, 43

Council for Basic Education, 272

Cousins, Norman, 270

Cowper, William, 100–101

Cree, 63

creole languages, 20–22, 32, 200

Cro-Magnon people, 13–15

Crockett, Davy, 77

Cromwell, Oliver, 102, 136, 221

crossword puzzles, 127, 250, 252–54, 256

cryptograms, 256

Crystal, David, 55, 132, 135

curse tablets, 45

Cymbeline (Shakespeare), 80

Cynewulf, 255

Cyrillic alphabet, 34

Daily Mail (London), 275–76

Danelaw, 50

Danes, 49–50, 229

Danish, 5, 211, 215

Dante Alighieri, 27

Darwin, Charles, 140

Davenport, John, 93

Day, John, 136

de Quincey, Thomas, 154

De Recta et Emendata Linguae Anglicae Scriptione Dialogus (Smith), 149

Dean, Roy, 252

declensions, 48, 54

Defoe, Daniel, 150, 155

Des Moines Register, 273

Dhimotiki, 35

diacritical marks, 131

dialects, 25–26, 28, 57–59

distinguishing features of, 106–7

ethnic, 111, 114–15, 122–24, 186–87

occupational, 115

placement and identification through, 107–13, 115, 117–18

political and social ramifications of, 113, 116, 118–20

religious significance of, 115

as separate languages, 121

spelling reflected in, 131–34, 139, 144, 167–68

study of, 106–12, 119–20

written, 106, 119

See also specific dialects

Diary in America (Marryat), 246

Dickens, Charles, 79, 81, 155, 262

diction, 92–96

dictionaries, 160–76, 253, 256

definitions in, 160–65, 167–68

distinctions lacking in, 90, 146, 157–58, 164

early examples of, 135, 166–76

French, 150

function of, 157–58, 173

history and development of, 166–76

mistakes in, 72, 147–48, 158

quotations and illustrations in, 168

revision and updating of, 160, 173, 175

spelling in, 70–71, 147–48, 170–71

terms ordinarily excluded from, 160–61, 173, 246, 249

unabridged, 158, 165–66

vocabulary size in, 4, 160, 165, 166–67, 168, 172, 173–74, 175–76

See also specific dictionaries

Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE), 110–11

Dictionary of the English Language (Johnson), 168

A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 147, 194, 274

Diller, K. C., 163–64

Dilworth, Thomas, 169

diphthongs, 90, 112

Disraeli, Benjamin, 264

Dissertations on the English Language (Webster), 169–70

Dodsley, Robert, 166

Dohan, Mary Helen, 79, 178

Domei news agency, 209

Domesday Book, 98, 133, 223

Dos, Don’ts and Maybes of English Usage (Bernstein), 133

double negatives, 21

Dravidian languages, 15

Dryden, John, 149

Duff brothers, 264

Dunbar, William, 241

Dutch, 10, 25, 35–36, 76, 86, 177–78, 215, 275

EastEnders, 276

The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Bede), 46

Echo (London), 263

Eckerson, L. D., 163

Ecole Centrale de Paris, 207

Economist, 20, 33, 39, 201, 203

Education Digest, 270

Education for Economic Security Act, 217

Edward the Confessor, king of England, 52

Edwards, David, 217

Edwards, Ralph, 233

“Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard” (Gray), 62

Elementary Spelling Book (Webster), 170

Eliot, T. S., 217

Elizabeth I, queen of England, 99, 188

Elizabethan Age, 62, 99–100, 136,

187

ellipsis, 146

Ellis, A. J., 188

Elyot, Thomas, 79

emphasis, 90–91, 95, 101–2, 228

Eneydos, 58

England

as center of culture and learning, 47

Christianity brought to, 47

Norman conquest of, 51, 54, 223, 228, 242

Roman invasion and occupation of, 43–46, 121, 133, 221, 229, 242

seven early kingdoms of, 43

successive linguistic waves in, 42–57, 229

tribal invasion and settlement of, 12–13, 43–46, 49–50

Viking invasion and occupation of, 49–50, 229

English

advantages of, 6–7, 10–11, 67–69, 84–86, 94–95, 151–52, 159, 242–43

airlines’ use of, 2–3, 206, 249

Anglo-Norman impact on, 51–56, 74, 76, 133–34

Celtic words in, 46

as common tongue, 3, 207–8

common usage mistakes in, 147–48, 152–57, 159

complexities of, 2, 11, 47–48, 84–86, 87–89, 147–49

conciseness of, 10–11, 67–69, 84, 211

distinct sounds in, 90–91, 100, 101–2, 129

distinctions lacking in, 4–5, 21, 63, 68

early lower-class status of, 52, 54–55, 66

English (cont.)

estimated numbers of speakers, 1, 200–202

evolution of, 42–66, 165–66, 174

evolutionary losses in, 63, 67–68, 98–99

exceptional growth periods of, 78–79, 177

first writing in, 44

flexibility and versatility of, 6–7, 54, 84–86, 151–52, 242–43

French impact on, 75–76, 83, 101–2, 179

genderlessness of, 10, 54

Germanic basis for, 25, 42–43, 47, 53, 77, 96, 275

global use and importance of, 1–4, 66, 198–217

good vs. bad usage of, 145–59, 190–94, 273

impact of journalism and media on, 155–56, 158, 190, 191–92, 194–95, 202, 207–8, 247–50, 269–70, 276

international business and technical use of, 2–3, 78, 160–61, 198–200, 201–2, 209

international study of, 3–4, 202–3, 216–17

Latin influence on, 7, 27–28, 46, 74–77, 81, 83, 149, 155, 241, 242

other languages compared with, 4–11, 32–33, 86, 87–90

perceived decline of, 153, 269–76

redundancy in, 69

reform efforts and, 150–51, 171, 213–15

resistance to spread of, 3, 206–7, 208

richness and expressiveness of, 56–57, 67–70, 84, 87–88

scientific use of, 2, 3, 78, 160–61, 201–2

as second language, 201–2, 207–9

simplified versions of, 213–15

as symbol of colonialism, 208

teaching of, 202–3, 207

unconscious use of, 11, 91

vocabulary size and richness in, 4, 56–57, 67–70, 160–65, 168, 175–76, 177–78

words and phrases adopted by, 5, 34, 51, 53, 74–77, 101–2, 116, 131, 139–40, 177–81

words and phrases expropriated from, 2, 21, 32, 53, 198–200, 203–7

English Civil War, 221

The English Language (Burchfield), 9, 52n, 78, 83, 130, 148, 149, 184

The English Language (Crystal), 55, 132, 135

Ericson, Leif, 32

Eskimo-Aleut, 5, 16

Esperanto, 37, 212–13, 215

Espy, Willard R., 257

An Essay Upon Projects (Defoe), 150

Ethelbert, king of Kent, 47

etymology, 73, 77, 148, 173, 174, 191, 267

euphemism, 244, 247–49, 265–66

European Community, 209

European Free Trade Association, 3

Euskadi to Azkatasuna (ETA), 37

Euskara, 15, 37

Evans, Bergen, 158

Every Man in His Humour (Jonson), 245

Family Shakespeare (Bowdler), 246

Feiffer, Jules, 69

Ferris, Richard, 237

Field, Richard, 65

Fielding, Henry, 262

films, 192, 194–95, 215, 276

Finnish, 16, 29, 88

Flemish, 3, 25, 35

Flesch, Rudolph, 157

Flexner, Stuart Berg, 162, 242

Flower, Kathy, 202

Follett, Wilson, 157

Follow Me, 202

fossil expressions, 82

Fowler, F. G., 153, 193

Fowler, H. W., 147, 152–53, 157, 193, 274

Fraffly, 118–19

France, 46, 51, 54, 101–2

Francien, 52–53

Francis, W. Nelson, 109

Franco, Francisco, 37

Franklin, Benjamin, 139, 169, 184, 191

French, 3, 4, 6, 30, 201

derivation of, 26–28, 46, 276

dialects of, 51, 123–24, 179

distinct sounds in, 101–2

English expressions in, 204–7

English influenced by, 75–76, 83, 101–2, 179

English speakers of, 51–52, 55–56, 134

grammar of, 34

protection and reform of, 150–51, 206–7

word games in, 259–60

fricatives, 94

Frisian, 43

Front de Libération de Québec (FLQ), 36

Funk & Wagnalls dictionary, 163

Gaelic, 5, 74, 76, 112

Breton, 37, 39

Irish, 7–8, 25–26, 30, 39–41, 66

Scottish, 25, 26, 34, 39–41, 66, 121

Welsh, 7–9, 17, 26, 38–39, 66, 87, 185

Gaeltacht, 40, 41

The Game of Words (Espy), 257

Gammer Gurton’s Needle, 245

Gatting, Mike, 250

Geechee, 123

gender, 10, 19, 29, 47, 54, 59

Genesis, Book of, 213

Gentleman’s Quarterly, 215

George I, king of England, 52

German, 3–6, 9, 10–11, 77, 86, 169, 184–86, 216–17, 275

dialects of, 33, 96

High vs. Low, 33, 96

Germanic languages, 86

divisions of, 25–26

English relationship to, 25–26, 42–43, 47, 53, 77, 96, 275

Germany, 42–43, 208

gestures, 31

Gettysburg Address, 214

Gibbon, Edward, 66, 246

Gil, Alexander, 149

Gladstone, William Ewart, 256

glossaries, 195

Goodrich, Chauncey A., 173

Gothic, 23, 26

Gove, Philip, 158

Government Printing Office, U.S., 141

Gowers, Ernest, 152, 157, 193–94

graffiti, 28, 198

grammar, 29, 145–50

arbitrary elements of, 146, 151–52

bending rules of, 146

children’s mastery of, 18–20, 21–22

common mistakes in, 147–48, 153–54, 156–58

complexity of, 149–50

Latin basis for, 7, 27–28, 149

Middle English, 56

Old English, 48

rules of, 153–54, 156–57

Scandinavian influence on, 50–51

Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (Wallis), 149

A Grammatical Institute of the English Language(Webster), 170

Gray, Thomas, 62

Great Vowel Shift, 97–98

Greek, 23, 25, 31, 155, 254–55

Grimm, Jacob, 23

The Growth and Structure of the English Language (Jespersen), 64, 152, 157, 211, 262

Guarani, 35

Guardian, 217, 250

A Guide to Chaucer’s Language (Burnley), 59

Guinness Book of World Records,

256

Gullah, 123–25, 187

Guoyo, 201

Gutenberg Bible, 137

Gutenberg, Johann, 137

gutturals, 94

Harcourt, William, 248

Hardy, Thomas, 81

The Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage, 147

Harrington, John, 65

Harris, Joel Chandler, 124

Harrison, William Henry, 183

Harvey, William, 66

Hastings, Battle of, 134

Hawaiian, 90

Hayakawa, S. I., 270

Hayter, William, 263

Hemming, John, 65

Hendrickson, Robert, 111, 124

Henry IV, king of England, 51, 55

Henry IV (Shakespeare), 64, 255

Henry V, king of England, 56

Henry V (Shakespeare), 188

Highway Beautification Act, 262

Hindi, 25

hiragana, 128–29

Hirohito, Emperor of Japan, 210

historical linguistics, 22–28

History of the American Revolution (Ramsay), 183

A History of the English Language (Baugh and Cable), 53, 211

Hitler, Adolf, 37

Hittite, 16

Hofmannsthal, Hugo von, 9

Hogan, Paul, 116n

Holden, E. S., 164

Hollywood Production Code, 240, 249

holorimes, 260–61

Homo sapiens, 12–15

homonyms, 110

House of Lords, 193

Howard, Philip, 148, 161

Huckleberry Finn (Twain), 106

Hume, David, 191

humor, 256, 262–65

Hungarian, 37

Hyperlect, 119

Icelandic, 32

ideographs, 126–28

idiolect, 105

idioms, 81–82, 213, 215

Ilocano, 63

Independent, 42, 250

India, 3

languages and dialects of, 32, 201, 208

Indo-European languages, 15, 22–23

languages derived from, 24–28, 47, 86

infinitives, split, 156–57

infixes, 84

inflections, 19, 25, 30, 47, 48, 54, 145

Inoue, Kazuhisa, 210

International Phonetic Alphabet, 90, 176

Ireland, 26–29, 39–41, 112, 185

languages and dialects of, 7–9, 26, 30, 39–41, 66, 99, 115, 117

isoglosses, 107

Italian, 3–6, 33, 90, 203, 276

dialects of, 33, 74

Jackson, Andrew, 182

James I, king of England, 135

James II, king of England, 80

Japanese, 2, 8, 9, 16, 30, 76, 126–30

English expressions in, 198–99, 204–5

limitations of, 30, 209–10

writing in, 128–29

jargon, 9, 210–11

Jarrow, 46, 49

Jefferson, Thomas, 169, 180, 184, 191, 274

Jespersen, Otto, 47, 57, 64, 71, 78, 102, 116, 151, 157, 164, 211, 262

Jesus Christ, 217, 255

John F. Kennedy Institute, 19

John, king of England, 55

Johnson, Burges, 248

Johnson, Samuel, 52n, 151, 160, 165–69, 172, 190, 191–92, 246, 256

Joint National Committee on Languages, 217

Jones, William, 22–23

Jonson, Ben, 79, 245, 256

Joyce, James, 41, 256

Julius Caesar (Shakespeare), 245

Jutes, 44, 229

kanji, 128

katakana, 128

Katharevousa, 35

Keats, John, 62

Kelly, Obadiah, 182

King James Bible, 61, 161

The King’s English (Fowler and Fowler), 193

Kingston, Miles, 260–61

Knowler, John, 118

Korean, 9, 16, 270

Koster, Laurens Janszoon, 137

Krio, 21, 200

Kurath, Hans, 107, 110

Labov, William, 109, 113

Lady Chatterley’s Lover (Lawrence), 250

Laird, Charlton, 4, 43, 44, 97, 111, 136, 161, 169

Lallans, 122

Language Change: Progress or Decay (Aitchison), 101

“language police,” 36

language(s)

absorption and amalgamation of, 32–34, 74–77

ancient, 22–28

artificial creation of, 37, 211–12, 214–15, 264–66

banning and suppression of, 35–40, 206–7

bias and, 8, 187, 271

children’s mastery of, 17–22

classical, 22–23, 26–28, 149

dead, 22–24, 25–26, 28

decline and extinction of, 26, 35–41, 54

estimated number of, 31–32

evolution and change of, 12–17, 22–28, 32–33, 80–83, 96

familiarity vs. formality in, 9–10, 63–64

geographical placement of, 32–34

governmental protection of, 36–40, 206–7, 269–72

impact of social conditions on, 20–22, 34–35, 51–56

innate and instinctive properties of, 18–19, 22

local and specific needs of, 5–6, 24, 203–5, 264–66, 275–76

minority vs. majority, 35–41, 201, 269–72

national coexistence of, 3, 31–32, 35–41, 49–58, 198–99, 207–8, 269–72

newly created, 32

obfuscation in, 10–11, 210–11

official sanctioning of, 35–41, 201, 208, 269–72

political implications of, 35–41, 208–9, 269–72

private, 264–66

regional and national differences in, 6, 24–27, 32–40

relationships among, 15–16, 22–28, 34, 38–41

spontaneous and separate development of, 15–16, 77–78

theories on development of, 17–20, 71–72

written, 22–24

larynx, 13–14, 94

Lasus, 255

Latin, 23, 25–26, 254, 255

ecclesiastical use of, 34, 55

English relationship to, 7, 27–28, 46–57, 74–77, 81, 83, 149, 155, 241

grammar of, 7, 27–28, 145, 149, 155

languages descended from, 4–5, 26–28, 47, 96, 276

literary and scholarly use of, 26–28, 45–46, 49, 66, 149

series of changes in, 96

Vulgate form of, 27–28, 242

Lauder, Afferbeck, 115, 118

Let Stalk Strine (Lauder), 115

letters, 126–27, 255

capitalization of, 158, 260

double, 98, 99

Old English, 134

phasing in and out of, 134, 194, 212

silent, 95–97, 99, 113, 138–39, 230

Lévesque, René, 36

Lewis, Sinclair, 195

libraries, 168, 174

Lieberman, Philip, 14

Lindisfarne, 49

Linear B script, 23

lingua franca, 2

lingua latina, 27

lingua romana rustica, 27

Linguistic Atlas of England, 120

Linguistic Atlas of New England,

111

Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada, 111

lip reading, 95

lipograms, 255, 260

Lithuanian, 25

Ljung, Magnus, 202

Lloyd George, David, 66

Logonomia Anglica (Gil), 149

London, 50, 243

dialects of, 57–59, 60, 62, 92, 98, 118, 119–20, 187–88, 266–67

East End of, 266–68

Lord’s Prayer, 59, 61

Los Angeles Times, 259

The Lost Art of Profanity (Johnson), 248

Louis XIV, king of France, 152

Louisiana, 123–24, 187

Love’s Labour’s Lost (Shakespeare), 256

Love’s Labour’s Won (Shakespeare), 65

Lowth, Robert, 153–54, 156

Luorawetlan languages, 15–16

Maintenance of the Purity of the French Language, 206

Malay, 208

Malory, Thomas, 138, 147

Manx, 26, 41

Marlowe, Christopher, 136

Marryat, Frederick, 246

The Mayor of Casterbridge (Hardy), 81

McCormick, Robert R., 142

McCrum, Robert, 57, 148, 161–62

McKnight, G. H., 164

memory, 163

Mencken, H. L., 113, 141, 169, 188, 274

Menke, Hubertus, 42

Merriam, Charles, 172–73

Merriam, George, 172–73

Merriam-Webster International Dictionary, 72, 173

metanalysis, 63

metaphasis, 262–63

metaphors, mixed, 64

Mexican, 179

Middle Ages, 23, 74, 76, 77, 121, 221, 224, 259

Middle English, 53–63, 96, 98

Milton, John, 63, 68, 79

Minor, W. C., 174–75

The Miracle of Language (Laird), 4, 111

Mitterrand, François, 206

Moldavian, 34

Monde, Le, 206

Montagu, Ashley, 240, 241, 248

More, Sir Thomas, 66, 79

Morley, John David, 210

Morse code, 127

Moss, Norman, 192

Mulcaster, Richard, 66

Müller, Max, 162

Mundus Novus, 180

Murphy, John, 236

Murray, James Augustus Henry, 141, 173–76

Mussolini, Benito, 37

My Fair Lady (Lerner and Loewe), 142

Na-Dene, 16

names, 218–38

American, 224, 226–28, 231–34, 237–38

anglicizing of, 227, 231–35

British, 100, 218–26, 228–31, 236–38

business use of, 235–38

corruption and modification of, 63, 223, 227–29

of days, 44

distinctiveness of, 220–21, 222, 229, 232–34

family, 218–20, 223–28

of flora and fauna, 52, 83, 160–61, 247

of foods, 52, 83

multiple spellings of, 136, 176, 178, 228–29

occupations reflected in, 223–24

origins of, 220–27

pejorative use of, 187

pronunciation of, 92–93, 99–100, 218–20, 229–32

spelling of, 226–29

See also place names

National Education Association,

141

National Transportation Safety Board, 249

Natural History, 16

Neanderthal man, 12–15

Neighbours, 276

Neo-Melanesian, 20–21, 200

Neolithic peoples, 14–15, 24

The New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 173–76

New World Indian languages, 16–17, 63, 74, 178, 182, 231

New York Evening Post, 192

New York Times, 4, 155, 158, 165, 210, 249, 254, 273

New York Times Magazine, 249

New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, 155, 249

New York World, 253

The New Yorker, 93

Newton, Isaac, 66, 79

nicknames, 63, 234

Nights with Uncle Remus (Harris), 124

Nixon, Richard M., 216, 249

Norman Conquest, 51, 54, 223, 228, 242

Norman French, 51–53

Normandy, 51–52, 54

Normans, 51–56, 74, 133–34, 228, 229

Norn, 50

Norse, 51

North, Frederick, Lord, 183

Northumbria, 46, 48–49

Notes on a Money Unit for the United States (Jefferson), 180

Notes on the State of Virginia (Jefferson), 191

nouns, 6–7, 47, 64, 99–100, 146

definitions of, 146

multiple spellings for, 130, 135, 175–76, 228–29

verbs as, 6–7, 64, 90, 101, 146, 191, 192

Novum Organum (Bacon), 66

number, 29, 48

Nunberg, Geoffrey D., 272

O’Brien, Conor Cruise, 40

obscenities, 173, 239–43, 245, 248, 250–51

Observer (London), 4, 198, 250, 274–75

Odell, Allan, 261–62

Ogden, C. K., 213

“O.K.,” 181–82, 242

Old English, 48–54, 56–57, 62, 155

modern English vs., 47, 72, 98, 241

Old Italian, 74

Old Norse, 51

onomasties, 223

onomatopoeia, 17, 90

The Origin of English Place Names (Reaney), 228

Orm, 135

orthoepy, 89, 104, 129, 131, 178, 220

Orton, Harold, 119–20

Oubykh, 32

OuLiPo (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle), 260

Our Language (Potter), 49, 106, 195

Our Marvelous Native Tongue (Claiborne), 117, 148

Our Own Words (Dohan), 79, 178

Oxford English Dictionary (OED), 2, 4, 11, 57, 70, 72, 160, 173–76, 189, 217, 249, 274

The Oxford Guide to Word Games (Augarde), 255

Oxford University, 3, 55, 58, 119, 184, 262–63

palindromes, 127, 256–57, 260

Paris, 51, 52–53, 56

Parliament, British, 55, 192–93, 245, 247

Parti Québécois, 36

participles, 149, 204

parts of speech, 135–37. See also specific parts of speech

Partridge, Eric, 157

Patrick, Saint, 45n

Pei, Mario, 28, 31, 34, 63, 75, 80–81, 115, 117, 130, 162, 180, 226, 249

Peking, 89

Pennsylvania Dutch, 185–86, 235

Pentagon, 211

Pepys, Samuel, 220

Perec, Georges, 259–60

Persian, 22, 23

Peterborough Chronicle, 54

Philadelphia Inquirer, 250

phonetics, 89–91, 93

phonies, 87

pictographs, 126, 129

Pictures from the Water Trade (Morley), 210

pidgin languages, 20–22

Pierce, John R., 91

pilgrims, 177

Pippa Passes (Browning), 73–74

Pitman, Isaac, 140

place names

American, 93, 100, 178, 179–80

British, 46, 50, 221–24, 225, 228–31

etymology of, 46, 50, 220–23

family names based on, 225

old pronunciation surviving in, 99–100

of pubs, 220–23

slurring and truncating of, 92–93

of streets, 220, 243

Platt, James, 174

plosives, 94

plurals, 21, 59, 60–62, 73, 156, 202

poetry, English, 41, 48, 57, 98–99, 100–101, 255–56

Point, Le, 207

Polish, 2, 203, 216

Polk, James K., 228

polysemy, 70–72

Pope, Alexander, 100

Portuguese, 25, 26, 34, 193, 201, 209

potato famine of 1845, 40, 185

Potter, Simeon, 47, 49, 57, 80, 90, 106, 131

predicates, 146

prefixes, 83–85

prepositions, 153–54

Press Council, 250

Priestley, Joseph, 151

Principia (Newton), 66

printing press, invention of, 136–37

pronouns, 9, 47, 48, 51, 61, 63

pronunciation, 7, 8, 87–104

British vs. American, 171–72,

188

duration and resonance in, 90

eighteenth-century, 104, 112

emphasis in, 91, 95, 101–2, 227–28

evolution of, 95–104

fashion and class distinctions in, 103, 113–15, 116n, 118–19

foreigners’ difficulty with, 87–88, 114, 133

historic rhymes as clue to, 98–99, 100–101

historic vs. modern, 104, 171–72

impact of literature on, 96, 98–99, 100–101

inconsistency in, 89, 100–101

letters intruding into, 91–92

misspellings as clue to, 99

of names, 92–93, 99–100, 218–20, 229–32

nineteenth-century, 103, 113

phonetic elements of, 93, 95,

135

rate of change in, 96

relationship of spelling to, 89–92, 99–103, 132, 134, 144, 218–20, 229–32

shifting vowel sounds in, 97–101, 104

slurred and truncated, 92–93, 95–96, 103

sound combinations in, 90, 91

suppressed sounds in, 95, 96–97, 99, 113, 138–39, 230

survival of, 99–100, 101–2, 103

syllabic values in, 92–93, 101–2

unconscious factors in, 91–92

vocal pitch and, 89–90

words rendered by multiple, 89, 144, 227–28

See also diction; speech

Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue (Swift), 150

Proto-Indo-European language, 16–17, 24

publishing, 137

pubs, 220–23

puns, 99, 245, 255

Puttenham, George, 58

Pygmalion (Shaw), 118, 119, 142

Pyles, Thomas, 110, 169–70, 191, 246, 251

Quayle, J. Danforth, 273

Quebec, 36, 271

Quirk, Randolph, 3, 184, 217

radicals, 126–27

Ramsay, David, 183

The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 158, 160, 165, 249

Rawlinson, Henry, 23

Read, Allen Walker, 182

Reagan, Ronald W., 217, 258

Reaney, P. H., 228

rebuses, 256, 259

Recuyell of the Historyes of Troy, 137

“Red Pants” (Sebastian), 81

Renaissance, 48–49

rhymes, 98–99, 100–101, 266–68

Richard II, king of England, 221

Richard II (Shakespeare), 245

Richard III, king of England, 222

Richelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal, 150, 166

Richter, Alan, 254

riddles, 256, 259

Roget’s Thesaurus, 4

Roman Catholic Church, 34, 55

Roman Empire

decline and fall of, 28, 46

invasion and occupation of England by, 43–46, 121, 133, 221, 229, 242

Romance languages, 5, 26–28, 47, 96, 276

Romanian, 26, 28, 34

Romansh, 32–33

Roosevelt, Theodore, 141

Royal Society for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy, 150

Ruhlen, Merrit, 16

runes, 44, 133

Russian, 4, 30, 34, 215

S4C, 39

Safire, William, 130, 152, 249, 260

Sanskrit, 22–23, 25

Saxons, 44, 95, 167, 229

Scandinavian languages, 25–26, 34, 49–52

A Scheme for a New Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling (Franklin), 140

Schlegel, Friedrich von, 23

Schleyer, Johann Martin, 211–12

schwa, 87, 93

Scientific American, 19

Scotland, 26, 39–41, 43, 117

Highland dialect of. See Gaelic, Scottish

Lowland dialect of, 122

Scots, 122

Scrabble, 254

scribes, 61, 133–34

Sea Islands, 123–25, 187

Seashore, R. H., 163

Seaspeak, 214

Sebastian, Robert M., 81

sentences, 146

ambiguous, 264

length of, 168

prepositional endings to, 153–54

Serbo-Croatian, 34, 181, 203

Shakespeare, William, 228, 262

authorship question and, 65, 256

death of, 65, 66, 245

language of, 59, 60, 61–62, 64–66, 73, 80, 96, 97, 100, 121, 154, 187–88, 191, 217, 245, 255

lost plays of, 65

multiple spellings for name of, 135–36, 176, 228

puns of, 99, 245, 255

vocabulary size of, 161

words and phrases coined by, 64–65, 78–79

works of, 63–64, 65, 80, 136, 187–88, 245, 256

Shaw, George Bernard, 41, 79, 118–19, 142

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 262

Shetland Islands, 50

Shipley, Joseph T., 161

A Short Introduction to English Grammar (Lowth), 153

shorthand, 140, 142

Sidney, Philip, 147–48

Simon and Schuster, 253

A Simplified Alphabet (Twain),

140

Simplified Spelling Board, 141–42

slang, 110, 116–17, 190, 195–96, 213, 240, 251

rhyming of, 266–68

slavery, 185

Smith, Logan Pearsall, 190

Smith, Thomas, 149

Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society (Trudgill), 35, 114

Soviet Union, 33–34, 37, 216–17

Spain, 54, 270

Spanish, 2, 4, 5, 26, 34, 35, 46, 179, 201, 269–72, 276

Spectator, 40, 195, 250

speech

analysis of, 91, 94

children’s mastery of, 17–20

conversational speed of, 94

cultural conventions and, 30–31, 103–4

dictation of, 95

inefficient process of, 95

laxness and imprecision in, 92–94, 95–96, 103

physiology of, 13–14, 91, 94, 98, 118–19

rules of, 17–18

slipups in, 95

words and sentences run together in, 92–94, 103

speech impediments, 118–19, 124

spelling, 126–44

attempts at reform of, 138–44, 170–71

British vs. American, 100, 143, 170–72, 175–76, 194

common errors in, 130–31

distinguishing features of, 131

illogical, 11, 60, 194

spelling (cont.)

inconsistency in, 61, 167–68, 171, 214

modern vs. old, 48, 54, 194

multiple, for same word, 130, 135, 175–76, 228–29

of names, 226–29

old dialects reflected in, 131–34, 138–39, 144, 167–68

relationship of pronunciation to, 89–92, 99–103, 132, 135, 144, 218–20, 229–32

rendering of sounds by, 129–30

simplification of, 102–3, 140–44, 213–15, 226–27

standardization of, 138–39

spelling bees, 256

Spelling Reform Association, 141

split infinitives, 156–57

Spooner, William, 262–63

spoonerisms, 95, 262–63

St. Mary-le-Bow Church, 266

The State of the Language (Howard), 140, 148

Statute of Additions, 224

Steele, Richard, 155

The Story of English (McCrum, Cran, and MacNeil), 57, 115, 148, 202

The Story of Language (Barber), 54

The Story of Language (Pei), 54, 63, 130

Strauss, Richard, 9

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, 14

Suddeutsche Zeitung, 216

suffixes, 83–85

Sunday Times (London), 151, 165, 236

supralaryngeal vocal tract, 94

Swahili, 21

swearing, 239–51

anger and insult expressed by, 239–40, 241, 250

British vs. American, 250–51

contempt for sacred things in, 240, 243–45

euphemisms for, 244, 247–49

proscription and punishment of, 240, 244–46, 248–49, 250

sexual content in, 239–43, 245–46, 247, 250–51

written use of, 245–50

Swedish, 202

Sweet, Henry, 274

Swift, Jonathan, 41, 150

Switzerland, 33, 202

syllables, 92–93, 94, 101–2

syncope, 92

Synge, John Millington, 41

synonyms, 5–6, 50, 57, 68, 69–70, 105, 110, 120, 240–42, 266–67

syntax, 19, 29, 51, 53, 55, 213

A Table Alphabeticall of Hard Words (Cawdrey), 135, 166

Tagalog, 74, 181

The Tar Baby (Harris), 124

Taylor, John, 257

Technology Review, 248

telegraphy, 127

television, 202, 207–8, 270, 276

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 140

tenses, 19, 29, 48, 145

Thackeray, William Makepeace,

155

Thames River, 46, 50, 58

Thorpe, Jim, 234

Thracian, 23, 25, 209

Time, 159, 215

Times (London), 176, 192, 210, 247, 252–54

To a Haggis (Burns), 122

Tocharian, 25

Todd, Loreto, 200

Tok Pisin, 200

Tolkien, J.R.R., 119

Tomorrow’s Illiterates, 272

tongue-twisters, 256

translations, 177–78, 192, 209–10, 211, 212, 214–15, 260

The Treasure of Our Tongue (Barnett), 130, 202, 273

Treaty of Rome, 209

Tristan da Cunha, 125

Trudgill, Peter, 35, 114

Trump, Donald, 237

Trust an Englishman (Knowler), 118

Turan, Kenneth, 215

Twain, Mark, 106, 140–41

The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Shakespeare), 63

type, movable, 137

typewriters, 127, 129

typographical errors, 72, 247–48

Ukrainian, 203

umlauts, 131

Uncle Remus and Br’er Rabbit (Harris), 124

United States

educational concerns in, 272–73

illiteracy in, 272–73

immigration into, 177–79, 184–87, 226–27, 269–70

language groups in, 269–72

new language proposed for, 184

non-English speakers in, 200, 269–72

study of foreign languages in, 216–17

An Universal Etymological Dictionary (Bailey), 167

Uralic, 16

U.S. English, 269–72

U.S. News & World Report, 202, 210, 272

U.S. Trademark Association, 158

The Use of English (Quirk), 184

Utopia (More), 66

Van Buren, Martin, 183

Vedas, 22–23

Ventris, Michael, 23

Verbatim, 81

verbs, 6–7, 22, 47–48, 50

evolution of, 102

nouns as, 6–7, 64, 90, 101, 146, 191, 192

Old English, 47–48, 54

progressive forms of, 65, 145

regularization of, 62–63

Vespucci, Amerigo, 180

Victoria, queen of England, 246, 248

Vikings, 49–50, 54, 229

Visser, F. Th., 149

vocabulary, 4–5, 19–20, 56–57, 67–70, 160–65, 168, 175–76, 177–78

of average persons, 162, 163–64

in dictionaries, 4, 160, 165, 166, 168, 172, 173–74, 175–76

memory and recall of, 163–64

writers’ use of, 64–65, 78–79, 158, 161–62

vocal pitch, 89–90

voiceless labiodental fricative, 94

Volapük, 211–12

vowels, 87–88, 90, 93

changing pronunciation of, 97–101

long vs. short, 97, 99, 112, 123, 172

multiple pronunciations of, 129

vulgate, 27–28, 242

Waldesmüller, Martin, 180

Wales, 38–39, 43, 117

Wallis, John, 149

Washington, George, 183

Watergate hearings, 249

Webster, Noah, 100–101, 103, 140, 143, 169–73, 175, 184, 274

Webster’s New World Dictionary, 130

Webster’s Second New International Dictionary, 158

Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (Webster’s Unabridged), 4, 158, 160

Welsh. See Gaelic, Welsh

Western alphabet, 34

Westminster Abbey, 137

Wexler, Kenneth, 19–20

What’s the Difference (Moss), 192

Who’s Who, 218

Wicker, Tom, 273

Wilde, Oscar, 41

William the Conqueror, king of England, 55, 134

Wilson, Woodrow, 182

Wingfield, Walter Clopton, 140n

Wodehouse, P. G., 218, 219

word chains, 86

word games, 127, 250, 252–61

A Word Geography of the Eastern United States (Kurath), 107

The Word (Laird), 136

wordplay, 99, 127, 245, 250, 252–68

words, 67–86

aboriginal, 6, 74, 116

adding to, 72, 83–86

adoption of, 4–5, 34, 50–51, 52–53, 74–77, 101–2, 116, 131, 139–40, 177–81

anglicizing of, 75–77, 101–2, 178–81, 206–7, 226–29, 231–35

Anglo-Saxon, 44, 56–57, 75, 77, 83, 241

back-formation of, 72–73

British vs. American usage of, 187–97, 246–47, 251

changed and drifting meanings of, 75–76, 80–83, 158–59, 181, 203, 242–43

compound, 83–86, 155, 181, 204

contradictory meanings of, 70–71, 195–96, 205

corruption of, 21, 203–5, 223

creation of, 64, 72–74, 77–80, 165, 169–70, 180–84, 189–92, 204

definitions of, 160–65, 167–68

erroneous creation of, 72–74

etymology of, 73, 77, 148, 173, 174, 191, 267

idiomatic preservation of, 81–82

instantaneous interpretation of, 95

kinship of, 75

length of, 10, 161n

loss of, 63, 67–68, 98–99

mangling of, 262–65

mishearing of, 72, 95, 235

most commonly used, 164

multiple meanings of, 70–72, 160

multiple spellings of, 129–30, 135, 175–76, 228–29

positive vs. negative forms of, 68

reemergence of, 78, 85, 189

reversible elements in, 86

roots of, 74–76, 80–81, 83, 155, 211–12

shortening of, 72, 83–85, 92–93, 116, 142, 178, 204

sounds shared by, 17, 100

technological, 78, 161

theories on formation of, 72

universal, 203

writers’ creation of, 64–65,

78–79

Words in the Mind (Aitchison), 163

Words and Ways of American English (Pyles), 191, 246

World War I, 76, 142, 185

World War II, 195, 209, 210, 242, 266

Wycliffe, John, 192

Wynne, Arthur, 253

Yats, 123

Yeats, William Butler, 41

Yiddish, 114, 187

Yugoslavia, 198

Zachrisson, R. E., 214

Zamenhoff, Ludovic Lazarus, 212