A History of English Language

A history of the english language 338
intelligence, and to the inexhaustible activity of the population, which, in a manner,
destroys space.” 7 We may excuse the patriotism that inspired some of these remarks,
remembering that Cooper was writing at a time when Americans often felt the need for
dwelling on the advantages of their country, but the fact remains that the uniformity of
American English seems to have been something generally recognized at the beginning
of the nineteenth century. Indeed, in another passage Cooper expresses the opinion that
such local differences as did exist and that could be detected “by a practised ear” were
diminishing. “It is another peculiarity of our institutions, that the language of the country,
instead of becoming more divided into provincial dialects, is becoming, not only more
assimilated to itself as a whole, but more assimilated to a standard which sound general
principles, and the best authorities among our old writers, would justify. The distinctions
in speech between New England and New York, or Pennsylvania, or any other state, were
far greater twenty years ago than they are now.” 8
The merging of regional differences through the mixture of the population that has
been described has been promoted since by a certain mobility that characterizes the
American people. It has been said that it is unusual to find adult Americans living in the
place in which they were born, and while this is an obvious exaggeration, it is
nevertheless true that change of abode is distinctly common. The very extensiveness of
the country, moreover, tends to create an attitude of mind that may almost be said to
diminish space. Americans are so accustomed to distance that they disregard it. Witness
the willingness of the westerner to make trips of five hundred or a thousand miles upon
slight occasions, or to drive across the continent for a vacation. In the past Americans
have had to reckon with the influence of Webster’s spelling book (see § 248) and Lindley
Murray’s grammar, and at all times public education in America has been a standardizing
influence. We respect in language the authority of those who are supposed to know; 9 it is
part of our faith in specialists, whether in surgeons or “publicity experts.” And we must
not forget the American instinct of conformity and the fact that they readily accept
standardization in linguistic matters as in houses, automobiles, and other things.
This is not to deny that currents contrary to standardization have always run through
American speech communities. Traditional dialectology, sociolinguistics, and studies in
the sociology of language have illuminated contin-
7
Notions of the Americans (2 vols., London, 1828), II, 164–65.
8
Ibid., II, 165–66.
9
“If pressed to say definitely what good American English is, I should say, it is the English of those
who are believed by the greater number of Americans to know what good English is.” R.O.
Williams, Our Dictionaries (New York, 1890), p. iii.