A History of English Language

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A history of the english language 320 tance, and it is clear that none will. The closed class of personal pronouns is much more resistant to additions and substitutions than the open classes of nouns and adjectives. We have seen during the late medieval period the plural pronouns in h- (hie, hem, hir) replaced by borrowings from Old Norse (Present-day they, them, their) and the rise of analogical its during the Renaissance. However, most of the changes in pronouns have simply been losses in number and case, and it would be unprecedented for a consciously constructed pronoun to come into general use. There is precedence, however, for the simplest solution to the problem of pronoun agreement in gender, and that is lack of agreement in number, as in the sentence with which we began: “Everybody should button their coat.” English, which once distinguished between singular thou, thee, thy and plural ye, you, your in the second person, has had plural you, your as the standard form for the past four centuries. An extension of the plural they, their to certain singular contexts would cause no more disruption in syntax than the change in the second person, and of course it already shows up in informal usage, as in the sentence quoted. 51 Other nouns, adjectives, and forms of address have supplanted sexist language so naturally that it is sometimes hard to imagine the resistance with which they originally met. Ms is a happy replacement in many contexts for the uncertainties that often attend a choice of Miss or Mrs., putting the female form of address on the same footing as Mr., for which indications of marital status have always been considered irrelevant. Flight attendant has given stewardess a dated ring, somewhat like a 1950s movie, where one might also hear girl for woman in a way that now jars, especially if there is no question of referring to the man as a boy. Poetess, authoress, and sculptress were out or on their way out before the feminist writings of the 1970s, while actress has had more resilience, possibly in part because of distinctions in awards for performance that would not apply to poets, authors, and sculptors. Job titles ending in -man, such as chairman and Congressman, sometimes substitute -person, though there is variation according to personal preference. A familiar choice in recent years is the shorter form chair, a word that the Oxford English Dictionary records with this meaning as early as 1658. 234. The Oxford English Dictionary. In the more enlightened attitude of the Society for Pure English, as distinguished from most purist efforts in the past, it is impossible not to see the influence of a great work that came into being in the latter half of the nineteenth century. About 1850 the inadequacy 51 See Ann Bodine, “Androcentrism in Prescriptive Grammar: Singular ‘they’, Sex-indefinite ‘he’, and ‘he or she,”’Language in Society, 4 (1975), 129–46.
The nineteenth century and after 321 THE EDITORS OF THE NEW (OXFORD) ENGLISH DICTIONARY Herbert Coleridge
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A History of the English Language F
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A History of the English Language F
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Contents Preface viii 1 English Pre
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Preface Before the present author e
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PHONETIC SYMBOLS [a] in father [a]
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1 English Present and Future 1. The
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English present and future 3 4. The
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English present and future 5 increa
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English present and future 7 French
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English present and future 9 learne
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English present and future 11 words
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English present and future 13 our t
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English present and future 15 World
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The Indo-European family of languag
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Old english 39 extended beyond a pr
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Old english 41 hundred towns, with
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Old english 43 whom almost certainl
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Old english 45 36. The Names “Eng
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Old english 47 39. The Dialects of
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Old english 49 fæger (fair), or s
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Old english 51 present the inflecti
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Old english 53 While the ordinary m
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Old english 55 The origin of the de
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Old english 57
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Old english 59 ‘proudly’, and t
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Old english 61 a saddle, the shield
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Old english 63 people. The literatu
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Old english 65 history of the rest
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4 Foreign Influences on Old English
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Foreign influences on old english 6
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The norman conquest and the subject
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The reestablishment of english, 120
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Middle english 147 and adjective ma
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Middle english 149 is clear that th
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Middle english 151 While an occasio
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Middle english 153 mations has been
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Middle english 155 the reality of M
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Middle english 157 the French words
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Middle english 159 brandish, vanqui
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Middle english 161 all the words in
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Middle english 163 whether found in
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Middle english 165 English vocabula
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Middle english 167 English word occ
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Middle english 169 French: forcover
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Middle english 171 142. Latin Borro
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Middle english 173 far this affecta
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Middle english 175 native populatio
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Middle english 177 the Middle Engli
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Middle english 179 148. The Rise of
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Middle english 181 the precise form
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Middle english 183 leef or tweyne,
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Middle english 185 phonology and mo
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8 The Renaissance, 1500-1650 152. C
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 189 bein
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 191 disc
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 193 well
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 195 That
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 197 cent
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 199 I la
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 201 expr
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 203 they
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 205 your
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 207 160.
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 209 anac
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 211 word
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 213 seve
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 215 of t
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 217 rein
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 219 heap
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 221 occu
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 223 Such
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 227 sugg
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 229 It m
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 231 spea
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 235 good
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The renaissance, 1500-1650 237 Sixt
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The appeal to authority, 1650-1800
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Page 281 and 282: The appeal to authority, 1650-1800
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Page 345 and 346: The english language in america 333
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The english language in america 371
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APPENDIX A Specimens of the Middle
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Appendix A 389 East Midland The Bes
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Appendix A 391 down to the ground a
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Appendix A 393 Ac ich alle blisse m
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Appendix A 395 Characteristic of th
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Appendix A 397 Of Engelond, to Caun
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APPENDIX B English Spelling The fol
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Appendix B 401 straunge wordes as l
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Appendix B 403 more he tooke God so
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Appendix B 405 words, whose Etymolo
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Index 407 Alabama, 354 Albanian bra
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Index 409 Bacon, Francis, 261 Bacon
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Brakelond, Jocelyn de, 122, 124 Bra
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Index 413 Chamberlain, John, 209, 4
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Index 415 words from, 303 Dalby, D.
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Index 417 East Africa, English lang
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Index 419 Flügel, Ewald, 286 Folio
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Index 421 Goodenough, Ward H., 40 G
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Hill, A.A., 402 Hill, David, 72-73
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Index 425 Jackson, Kenneth, 72 Jaes
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Index 427 Lance, Donald M., 407 Lan
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Index 429 Lycian, 26 Lydgate, John,
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Index 431 Milton, John, 183, 224, 2
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Index 433 Nunnally, Thomas, 407 Nyn
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Peterborough Chronicle, 166 Peterho
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Index 437 Quirk, Randolph, 56, 316
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St. Mary’s Abbey, York, 147 Sallu
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Index 441 Society of Antiquaries, 2
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Index 443 Scandinavian, influence o
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Index 445 Verb-adverb combinations,
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Index 447 Woodbine, George E., 157
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A History of English Language

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