HENRY MAYHEW (1812-1887) AND

categorig as c ell as tkir paceived relationship to
qualities; l3 sc~ars were
English The "aavliterate debate" tried to set limits - aad still amtimes to try to set
Iimits - to what were consickred to be the rmst civihxi, moral, and rational practices
during the last 250 years. Bearers of t r m techniques of self-knowledge such as
h k e fiamed and sometimes tried to destroy other languages embedded in orher social
practices. Or to put it aaaher way, they tried to desaoy bearers of differing COI~C~QB of
Literacy by &migrating adhary dialects, argas. id patois. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary
of the English Language (1755). which popularized standard dictioaaries and grammars,
stated: "Illiterate writers, will at oae time a another, by public infatuation, rise into
renown, wtro not knowing the aiginal h p t of wads, will use timm with colloquial
Licentiaslless. cdouad distinction, and faget prqxiety."" Upper-class English was a
monument to higb culture's mom eduhg characteristics, Juhson argued, whereas
lower-and middle-class languages were "cant", just paishable commodities like the
people themselves. He argued that this 'Yugitive cant, which is always in a state of
increase or b y , cannot be regarded as any of the durable materials of a language. and
thaefae must be Wered to perish with akr things unworthy of presavation." l5
Mae
than eighty years after it was first written Bishop L ows A Shun Introduction to English
Grammar (1762) continued to warn its readers against imitating qualities found in
I'
Smith, Olivia. The Politics of lcutguage. 1791 -1819. Oxfad, New Yak: Clarendm Ress,
1984.9.
'' Smith, 13.
'' Smith, 14, 16,22 24. Lmd Moaboddq James Harris's fiend, (Harris's Hems (1751).
extended Johnson's notioa of "cant" to include the idea that "the languages of children, savages
and tbe vulgar are [actually] imbruted in tbe material wald." and are "scattered througb different
languages-"