The English language is a battlefield. Since the age of Shakespeare, arguments over correct usage have been acrimonious, and those involved have always really been contesting values ' to do with morality, politics and class. THE LANGUAGE WARS examines the present state of the conflict, its history and its future. Above all, it uses the past as a way of illuminating the present. For the debates that rage now are hardly new. We hear people disparaging slang, imported words, abbreviations, wonky grammar and the mistakes of public figures who 'ought to know better', and we may as a result imagine that we are living in an age of unique stupidity and crassness ' and of remarkable linguistic precariousness. But this suspicion was just as common in the Britain of Shakespeare or Dickens, and in the America of Benjamin Franklin or Martin Luther King. Moving chronologically, the book explores the most persistent issues to do with English and unpacks the history of 'proper' usage.
Where did these ideas spring from? Which of today's bugbears and annoyances are actually venerable? Who has been on the front line in the language wars? Understanding past disputes over English enables a fuller understanding of the arguments and irritations that exist in the present. THE LANGUAGE WARS examines grammar rules, regional accents, swearing, spelling, dictionaries, political correctness, and the role of electronic media in reshaping language. It also takes a look at such niggling concerns as the split infinitive, elocution and text messaging. The book is peppered with anecdotes, both historical and personal. It's peopled with intriguing characters; some are familiar or at least not unfamiliar: Jonathan Swift, Noah Webster, H. W. Fowler and George Orwell. Others are not well-known: the grammarians Robert Lowth, Ann Fisher and Lindley Murray, and the quirky linguistic theorists John Horne Tooke and C.
K. Ogden. Finally, there are cameos by such disparate figures as Lewis Carroll, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, bonobos, Lenny Bruce and the unicorn-hunting students at Michigan's Lake Superior State University. THE LANGAUGE WARS is an essential volume for anyone interested in the state of the English language today or who is intrigued about its future.