Questions at Issue in Our English Speech

Chapter 2: ACKNOWLEDGMENT

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About This Book

A series of essays examines the tensions between spoken and written English, tracing how printing and conservatism froze orthography while pronunciation changed, and arguing why spellings seem antiquated. Other pieces analyze who determines pronunciation, distinguish slang and vulgarisms and their social pedigrees, contrast British and American usages, and consider how a standard English emerges and is maintained through usage, authority, and education. The essays balance historical explanation with practical questions about preference, correctness, and linguistic change, aiming to clarify the forces shaping contemporary American English.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Practically all the matter in this collection of essays has been printed elsewhere. Four of the articles, “A Question of Preference in English Spelling,” “Authority in English Pronunciation,” “What Is Slang?” and “Briticisms versus Americanisms,” first appeared in the “Popular Science Monthly” and are here reproduced with the kind permission of the editor of that journal. The paper, “Vulgarisms with a Pedigree,” is rewritten from three brief essays on allied themes which were published in the “Atlantic Monthly” and the “North American Review.” The essay on “Our English Spelling of Yesterday—Why Antiquated?” is reprinted from the “Methodist Review.” I wish here to thank the publishers of these periodicals for permission to reprint.