John Locke believed in what is called "rational idealism." This is the belief that if you get the language clear, and the arguments simple, then the misunderstandings will be avoided and so peace will follow. This is brilliant in theory, but like many things, including communism, it is only good in theory. The problem is that language is constantly changing and being reformed by those who use it. Even in John Locke's time scholars were changing the meaning of English words to fit what they needed for their science discoveries. Jonathan Swift countered by saying "How could one undertake his work with cheerfulness...when in an age or two, hardly anyone can understand without an interpreter?" Swift also hated how people abbreviated English words. He, like many others, considered these shortenings to be "crude," and he wanted an academy to be created to correct English and keep it the same. One way to try to keep a language the same is by standardizing it through a dictionary, which is exactly what Johnson did.
Johnson's dictionary created national pride for England, but the dictionary is questionable today because some of the origins and definitions can be considered biased or inaccurate. This demonstrates that yes, languages and meanings do change over time even though some try to prevent the change because "no dictionary could embalm a language." Over time English rules were created like "better of two and best of three" and some even wanted the slang words eradicated from common use age. William C. was a lower class man who taught himself the rules of English because he believed that when you can't understand grammar, you can't write or speak correctly, so you will amount to very little. I agree. How can you amount to anything when no one understands you or respects you? This is what Thomas S. tried to fix with the Scots.
Thomas S. tried to teach the Scots how to speak correct English. The main problem was the gap between what the printing press wrote and how it was spoken. Standardizing this is difficult, especially in English where the same four letters, "ough" can have six different sounds. To help with this problem, Thomas S. created a book entitled British Education to help with pronunciation and such. He believed that if everyone spoke in the same way, that everyone would be considered equal. On the contrary, it divided the people into those that copied the pronunciation and those that didn't. Finally, the type of person Swift and Johnson wanted came along.
This novelist was Jane Austen. She became the "academy" for "fixing" the English language through her novels. Her novels did not include street language, references to body parts, or swear words. This showed that she could control her words and did not let them be vulgar or unladylike. She believed that if you "remove the words, you remove the thoughts." However, if you substitute words to mean the same as vulgar words, then those words still provoke the same thoughts you were apparently trying to avoid. These new substitutions also added to the changing English language as well as the new Industrial age.
When the Industrial Revolution hit, new words were created to describe the new inventions and old words were transformed to have new meanings. Factories and mills now became places of manufacturing. This all goes back to the idea that language does change over time and that no matter how hard you try, you can't successfully keep a language from developing. The writer Lewis Carol facilitated this change. He believed that if he used a word, it means what he chose it to mean. It is what "...the speaker intends...and what a hearer understands..." This type of person would have made Locke go insane. Lewis is the perfect example of how language does change over time by those who actively use it and that very little can be done to change that fact.
Info:
Klidstone1970. "The Adventure of English - Speaking Proper - Ep 6." YouTube. YouTube, 19 Sept. 2011. Web. 27 Jan. 2013.
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