A collection of statements by literary men and others about the nature and use of the language, its resources, potentialities and development. Volume I covered the period 1490-1839. Volume II starts in 1858 and runs to the 1960s and therefore records the rise first of philology, then of modern linguistic study. Accordingly this volume contains a number of excerpts from the writings of great European and American language-scholars (Sweet, Sapir and Bloomfield among others) as well as by important writers. The volume provides a readable and often entertaining introduction to thought about English, and language generally, during the period and also illustrates the overall development of attitudes. The editors provide an introduction and study questions for those readers who use the book for formal class-study. Distinctive features of the original writings are preserved as examples of variety of style, spelling, punctuation and general presentation. Footnotes explain difficulties.
| ISBN | 052109545X | | Pages | 340 | | ISBN13 | 9780521095457
(What's this?) | | Part volume | Essays by Linguists and Men of Letters, 1858-1964 | | Publisher | Cambridge University Press | | Weight (grammes) | 430 | | Imprint | Cambridge University Press | | Published in | Cambridge | | Format | Paperback | | Previous ISBN | 9780521073257 | | Publication date | 01 Jun 1969 | | Height (mm) | 216 | | Library of Congress | PE25.B55 | | Width (mm) | 140 | | DEWEY | 420.8 | | Spine width (mm) | 19 | | DEWEY edition | DC21 | | Academic level | Tertiary education |
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Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Charles Dickens: 'Saxon-English' from Household Words; 2. Henry Sweet: 'Words, Logic and Grammar', from Transactions of the Philological Society; 3. Fitzedward Hall: 'English Rational and Irrational', from The Nineteenth Century; 4. Walt Whitman: 'Slang in America' from The North American Review; 5. J. A. H. Murray: 'General Explanations', from the Introduction to A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; 6. George Bernard Shaw: 'A Plea for Speech Nationalisation', letter to The Morning Leader; 7. Robert Bridges: 'The Society's Work', Society for Pure English, Tract XXI; 8. A. Lloyd James: 'Broadcast English', BBC Pamphlet; 9. Logan Pearsall Smith: 'Needed Words', Society for Pure English, Tract XXXI; 10. Edward Sapir: 'Language', from Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences; 11. Leonard Bloomfield: 'The Structure of Learned Words', from A Commemorative Volume; 12. Eilert Erkwall: 'The Value of Place-Name Study', from the Introduction to The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names; 13. I. A. Richards: 'The Interinanimation of Words', from The Philosophy of Rhetoric; 14. Eric Partridge: 'Slang', Society for Pure English, Tract LV; 15. C. C. Fries: 'The Social Significance of Differences in Language Practice and the Obligation of the Schools', from American English Grammar; 16. George Orwell: 'Politics and the English Language', from Horizon; 17. Bernard Bloch: 'English Verb Inflection', from Language; 18. H. L. Mencken: 'English or American?' from The American Language; 19. R. B. Lees: 'A Multiply Ambiguous Adjectival Construction in English', from Language; 20. H. Kurath and R. I. McDavid: 'Introduction', from The Pronunciation of English in the United States; 21. James Sledd: 'The Lexicographer's Uneasy Chair', from College English; 22. Anthony Burgess: 'Words' from Language Made Plain; Study Questions; Select Index of Literary and Linguistic Topics.
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