David Crystal (1) (1941–)
Author of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language
For other authors named David Crystal, see the disambiguation page.
About the Author
David Crystal is Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor.
Series
Works by David Crystal
Spell It Out: The Curious, Enthralling and Extraordinary Story of English Spelling (2012) 347 copies, 7 reviews
Words in Time and Place: Exploring Language Through the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary (2014) 83 copies
Child Language, Learning and Linguistics: An Overview for the Teaching and Therapeutic Professions (1976) 17 copies
We Are Not Amused: Victorian Views on Pronunciation as Told in the Pages of Punch (2017) 14 copies, 1 review
Crystal’s Curiosity Cabinet: An English Language Miscellany (English Edition) (2026) 12 copies, 1 review
Associated Works
Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World (2005) — Introduction, some editions — 1,899 copies, 36 reviews
Found in Translation: How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World (2012) — Foreword, some editions — 158 copies, 8 reviews
Shakespeare's Original Pronunciation: Speeches and Scenes Performed as Shakespeare Would Have Heard Them (2012) — Introduction, narrator — 19 copies, 1 review
Thirty years of linguistic evolution studies in honour of René Dirven on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday (1992) — Contributor — 6 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Crystal, David
- Legal name
- Crystal, David
- Birthdate
- 1941-07-06
- Gender
- male
- Education
- St. Mary's College
University College London (BA|1962|Ph.D) - Occupations
- linguist
academic
lecturer
broadcaster - Organizations
- University College, Bangor
University of Reading
Crystal Reference Systems Limited
Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading
Society of Indexers - Awards and honors
- Order of the British Empire (Officer, 1995)
British Academy (Fellow, 2000)
Learned Society of Wales (Founding Fellow, 2010)
Chartered Institute of Linguists (Honorary Fellow)
Royal College of Speech and Language (Fellow) - Relationships
- Crystal, Ben (son)
- Short biography
- David Crystal is one of the world's pre-eminent language specialists. An honorary professor at Bangor University, he has published many books on the English language and linguistics, edited several general encyclopedia and written textbooks on language for use in schools. He is a regular contributor to radio and television programs. He lives in Holyhead, Wales. [adapted from A Little Book of Language (2010)]
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Lisburn, Northern Ireland, UK
- Places of residence
- Holyhead, North Wales, UK
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK - Map Location
- Northern Ireland, UK
Members
Reviews
Honestly, after I got into it, I enjoyed it so much that I was tempted to give it a higher rating, but I think I’ll stick to four stars. Because it did take me a little while to get into.
I’m not sure whether it was actually slower at the beginning, or whether I just wasn’t in the mood for it, but it took a while. Of course, after that it was hard not to notice the way Crystal’s humour infused the text and made a potentially dry read about punctuation into an amusing one. Some of it show more comes from relating personal stories, like the ones about how young children incorporate what they’ve learned about the punctuation system into their own writing in interesting ways on page 114:
He also got points for referencing Terry Pratchett in his section on exclamation points. I was amused by some of the examples he used for when line break hyphenation rules could create miscues (e.g. the-rapists) or where you wouldn’t expect a phrase to be written as solid text due to pairs of vowels creating momentary uncertainty: freeenterprise amused me in particular. Hyphen hysteria made me smile too (p 264):
And with regards to the amalgamated town East Carbon-Sunnyside, I think the name “East Carbon Sunnyside” would be way cooler. It sounds like it would be good for a science fiction setting. C’mon, writers!
All in all, this was an amusing and informative read that didn’t try to lay down the rules (which are variable) so much as try to explore the different punctuation options available and how they can be used to effect in “making a point”. It also covered some of the history of US vs. UK usage and that of different publishing houses. He didn’t neglect the Internet usages and made some interesting points about the default lack of ending punctuation in most text messaging leading to the ability to convey subtleties in tone by purposefully including it in certain situations.
Recommended.
[Aside: There seems to some variation as to whether the subtitle says “pernickety” or “persnickety”. My copy reads Making a Point: The Persnickety Story of English Punctuation. Now, is that UK vs. US usage? I would say “persnickety”, personally. I’m also now overly conscious of when I decide to use quotation marks over italics.] show less
I’m not sure whether it was actually slower at the beginning, or whether I just wasn’t in the mood for it, but it took a while. Of course, after that it was hard not to notice the way Crystal’s humour infused the text and made a potentially dry read about punctuation into an amusing one. Some of it show more comes from relating personal stories, like the ones about how young children incorporate what they’ve learned about the punctuation system into their own writing in interesting ways on page 114:
“I recall one youngster (age about seven) who put a full stop at the end of every line of his story, regardless of sense. Another who put one between each word of the story title. Yet another had a fascination with semicolons. When I asked her why she used them so much, she replied that she liked the size and that they were pretty. And when I suggested a full stop was the normal way of ending a sentence, she looked very dubious, and observed that if you wanted to show something had come to an end, then surely the bigger the better?”
He also got points for referencing Terry Pratchett in his section on exclamation points. I was amused by some of the examples he used for when line break hyphenation rules could create miscues (e.g. the-rapists) or where you wouldn’t expect a phrase to be written as solid text due to pairs of vowels creating momentary uncertainty: freeenterprise amused me in particular. Hyphen hysteria made me smile too (p 264):
“And if you were in the habit of using the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, and had internalized its recommendations, you would have had a real shock in 2007, when the sixth edition was published and you saw that around 16,000 items had had their hyphens removed. Most of the changes had the hyphen replaced by a solid setting (pigeon-hole > pigeonhole, cry-baby > crybaby, bumble-bee > bumblebee), but quite a few ended up spaced (test-tube > test tube, ice-cream > ice cream, hobby-horse > hobby horse). Reactions ranged from the hysterical to the bemused. Some observers called it ‘hyphengate’.”
And with regards to the amalgamated town East Carbon-Sunnyside, I think the name “East Carbon Sunnyside” would be way cooler. It sounds like it would be good for a science fiction setting. C’mon, writers!
All in all, this was an amusing and informative read that didn’t try to lay down the rules (which are variable) so much as try to explore the different punctuation options available and how they can be used to effect in “making a point”. It also covered some of the history of US vs. UK usage and that of different publishing houses. He didn’t neglect the Internet usages and made some interesting points about the default lack of ending punctuation in most text messaging leading to the ability to convey subtleties in tone by purposefully including it in certain situations.
Recommended.
[Aside: There seems to some variation as to whether the subtitle says “pernickety” or “persnickety”. My copy reads Making a Point: The Persnickety Story of English Punctuation. Now, is that UK vs. US usage? I would say “persnickety”, personally. I’m also now overly conscious of when I decide to use quotation marks over italics.] show less
It is good to see this book out in this anniversary year (Tyndale's New Testament first appeared in 1526) by a world expert on the English language and its development and the author of Begat (on the AV). He himself has been surprised at how large a contribution Tyndale actually made to the English language. Making use of all Tyndale's works not just his translations Crystal makes a very thorough job of analysing Tyndale and his language with the help of the OED and one or two other show more resources. Even linguophiles will nod perhaps at certain points, especially when he is trying to work out how much of the AV is Tyndale, but Crystal is good at keeping up interest. His extensive use of appendices is a wise move. I'd have liked more on Jehovah and atonement and Passover but Crystal is a linguist not a theologian. Do get hold of it. show less
A whole book on punctuation. Three hundred and fifty pages! If that's not your thing, please do not read any further. Do not pause, period. I do not want to give you a pain in your colon: semi or otherwise; and I don't want to hear the exclamations of the annoyed; the question marks of the irritated, and the bold capitalisations of the momentarily angry social media user. Avert your eyes, go no further, do not punctuate your flow of vexation (fretfulness) with a brief stop. But if not...
I show more found this book in an opportunity shop, thrift or charity shop to my northern friends. It was a brand-new copy, unread. And it came at just the right time. A had given a copy of my manuscript to someone to read, and upon return was told in an exasperated tone that I really should deal with my punctuation! The matter was even punctuated with exasperated exclamations in the notes. Now, I knew I was being a little flamboyant with my sentences in the manuscript; indulging in long exuberant multi-clause sentences requiring semi-colons, commas and colons to break up dense thoughts in prose. I didn’t think I was that bad, really. And on one point – the sequential comma – Oxford comma to some – I was told I had missed the point. That was the first chapter I read on the train home in my new-old copy of this book about a thorny old issue. To add a comma before the ‘and’ that concludes a list. That is the debate. To add that little period, or not to add that little period. Well, I had been trained by modern style manuals. A comma before the and was an archaism I had been told. And yet, David Crystal says this is not exactly the case since modern – twentieth century – printing started the trend against little extras that required typeface that required more type-setting, that required more page space, and less clutter. Now I’ve just illustrated Mr Crystal’s point. I’ve added a comma before my ‘and’ at the end of my list. Why? Because there is a semantic difference between the last item on the list and the previous. Mr Crystal argues that a simple sentence such as a list of colours does not require the sequential comma, but if you are writing something a little more complex, where the meaning of the last item is quite different to the previous ones, then give the reader a warning with a little pause thus making them think a little more about the point you are making. Which I think I will do from now on. Add meaning for the reader with a little period. They deserve a rest now and then. Especially with dense prose.
OK, so this is a book on punctuation. A guide even. So I’d better not slip an errant comma where a colon should be, or let a sentence run wild without pauses. A period is an old word for punctuation, it defines the time the reader should consider pausing during a sentence, or at the end. My word processing software always wants me to add a comma after I use the word ‘so’. But I refuse most of the time until my document is lit up with tiny light blue auto-generated underlinings. I call these the ‘blue-ring-octopus’ infestation on MY page, toxic little organisms that seem to glow bright enough to burn themselves into my brain. And they sting like their namesake. I don’t want my sentences to start with a pause after one tiny little two-letter word: ‘so’. But why so – I know it has something to do with my heavy use of ‘so’. But so what! But I will refuse and suffer the regular little barbs of blue all over my page except where I intervened with an ‘em’ dash earlier. I learned here that an ‘em’ dash is a printer’s measure – of the space made by a single letter for ‘m’. And an ‘en’ dash is a little shorter - thus. During the 18thC dashes were very popular. The dashing heroes of English prose, perhaps. Less so now and very literary, the ‘em’ dash was James Joyce’s preferred introduction of dialogue.
David Crystal makes it clear that punctuation exists to support meaning. And he makes that clear by writing in lively and engaging prose. His prose is often better than much fiction I encounter.
There are many amusing stories about the evolution of different punctuations. The one I like tells how one fellow wanting to quantify the length of each period – comma, colon, full stop, semi colon, ended up using something akin to musical notes to define length. The problem is that punctuation should not be like the division of a breves, semi-breves, minims, crotchets and quavers. Because by the time you start at a half beat of a comma, a whole beat of a semi-colon, a doubling of that for a colon and another doubling for a full stop, then you probably spend more time pausing than reading. The word period in British English means a full stop, but I’ve use it here as a generic meaning here to refer to a length of time; since I use the term ‘full stop’.
Once upon a time a sensible Elizabethan printer named Denham started using a new punctuation – an inverted question mark to denote a rhetorical question – known as a percontation. Now that is sensible, isn’t it⸮ I suspect it didn’t take off because no one could grasp the clumsy sounding word percontation. I have spent a whole week trying to remember it and wrote this review in the hope that my head retains it. The percontation is also known as an ‘irony mark’, i.e., it denotes irony. But I suspect that this is unnecessary, since irony must surely be subtle or not used at all, and certainly should not demand its own punctuation. But a rhetorical question is just that, a question that answers itself. It might be ironic that it does, since it points to an ironic use of the questioning mode. But that is not clear enough. As Crystal makes clear, when a writer writes a question in dialogue, for instance, it should be clear that it is a question by the phrasing and not even require punctuation at all, let alone an innovative percontation. I prefer to leave a rhetorical question unpunctuated. It is unnecessary. A rhetorical question is most often used with a conversational voicing, if not actual dialogue by an author.
I’m planning to read David Crystal’s book on English grammar since my schooling began as earnest grammar teaching declined and I often feel I need a refresher. After that, a whole book on the madness of English spelling! show less
I show more found this book in an opportunity shop, thrift or charity shop to my northern friends. It was a brand-new copy, unread. And it came at just the right time. A had given a copy of my manuscript to someone to read, and upon return was told in an exasperated tone that I really should deal with my punctuation! The matter was even punctuated with exasperated exclamations in the notes. Now, I knew I was being a little flamboyant with my sentences in the manuscript; indulging in long exuberant multi-clause sentences requiring semi-colons, commas and colons to break up dense thoughts in prose. I didn’t think I was that bad, really. And on one point – the sequential comma – Oxford comma to some – I was told I had missed the point. That was the first chapter I read on the train home in my new-old copy of this book about a thorny old issue. To add a comma before the ‘and’ that concludes a list. That is the debate. To add that little period, or not to add that little period. Well, I had been trained by modern style manuals. A comma before the and was an archaism I had been told. And yet, David Crystal says this is not exactly the case since modern – twentieth century – printing started the trend against little extras that required typeface that required more type-setting, that required more page space, and less clutter. Now I’ve just illustrated Mr Crystal’s point. I’ve added a comma before my ‘and’ at the end of my list. Why? Because there is a semantic difference between the last item on the list and the previous. Mr Crystal argues that a simple sentence such as a list of colours does not require the sequential comma, but if you are writing something a little more complex, where the meaning of the last item is quite different to the previous ones, then give the reader a warning with a little pause thus making them think a little more about the point you are making. Which I think I will do from now on. Add meaning for the reader with a little period. They deserve a rest now and then. Especially with dense prose.
OK, so this is a book on punctuation. A guide even. So I’d better not slip an errant comma where a colon should be, or let a sentence run wild without pauses. A period is an old word for punctuation, it defines the time the reader should consider pausing during a sentence, or at the end. My word processing software always wants me to add a comma after I use the word ‘so’. But I refuse most of the time until my document is lit up with tiny light blue auto-generated underlinings. I call these the ‘blue-ring-octopus’ infestation on MY page, toxic little organisms that seem to glow bright enough to burn themselves into my brain. And they sting like their namesake. I don’t want my sentences to start with a pause after one tiny little two-letter word: ‘so’. But why so – I know it has something to do with my heavy use of ‘so’. But so what! But I will refuse and suffer the regular little barbs of blue all over my page except where I intervened with an ‘em’ dash earlier. I learned here that an ‘em’ dash is a printer’s measure – of the space made by a single letter for ‘m’. And an ‘en’ dash is a little shorter - thus. During the 18thC dashes were very popular. The dashing heroes of English prose, perhaps. Less so now and very literary, the ‘em’ dash was James Joyce’s preferred introduction of dialogue.
David Crystal makes it clear that punctuation exists to support meaning. And he makes that clear by writing in lively and engaging prose. His prose is often better than much fiction I encounter.
There are many amusing stories about the evolution of different punctuations. The one I like tells how one fellow wanting to quantify the length of each period – comma, colon, full stop, semi colon, ended up using something akin to musical notes to define length. The problem is that punctuation should not be like the division of a breves, semi-breves, minims, crotchets and quavers. Because by the time you start at a half beat of a comma, a whole beat of a semi-colon, a doubling of that for a colon and another doubling for a full stop, then you probably spend more time pausing than reading. The word period in British English means a full stop, but I’ve use it here as a generic meaning here to refer to a length of time; since I use the term ‘full stop’.
Once upon a time a sensible Elizabethan printer named Denham started using a new punctuation – an inverted question mark to denote a rhetorical question – known as a percontation. Now that is sensible, isn’t it⸮ I suspect it didn’t take off because no one could grasp the clumsy sounding word percontation. I have spent a whole week trying to remember it and wrote this review in the hope that my head retains it. The percontation is also known as an ‘irony mark’, i.e., it denotes irony. But I suspect that this is unnecessary, since irony must surely be subtle or not used at all, and certainly should not demand its own punctuation. But a rhetorical question is just that, a question that answers itself. It might be ironic that it does, since it points to an ironic use of the questioning mode. But that is not clear enough. As Crystal makes clear, when a writer writes a question in dialogue, for instance, it should be clear that it is a question by the phrasing and not even require punctuation at all, let alone an innovative percontation. I prefer to leave a rhetorical question unpunctuated. It is unnecessary. A rhetorical question is most often used with a conversational voicing, if not actual dialogue by an author.
I’m planning to read David Crystal’s book on English grammar since my schooling began as earnest grammar teaching declined and I often feel I need a refresher. After that, a whole book on the madness of English spelling! show less
This deceptively lightweight book should be compulsory reading for every obsessive pedant and equally for those who take a totally laissez faire approach to usage. And in fact, everyone else.
This is not an obscure reference work, but a good overview that is accessible to a general audience. For a slightly more academic approach, consider Henry Hitchings' The Language Wars (see my review HERE).
Language Change: Rules versus Comprehension
David Crystal, a respected linguistics professor, cares show more about rules and grammar (and has written grammar guides), but he cares far more about meaning, comprehension and effect.
He explains the history (and future) of the English language, especially in its written form, in lots of short chapters. It is anecdotal, rather than academic, though it has plenty of facts and references to sources as well.
Our language is a melting pot, not a salad bowl, and language change is inevitable. It has been complained about since Chaucer’s time, yet we still have great writers. Crystal concludes that we shouldn't panic about it and that understanding appropriateness is paramount.
Context and Discernment
Knowing how an engine works does not make you a good driver: you need a feel for the medium and situation as well. Consequently, he pleads for discernment in applying rules; appropriateness and context are recurring themes. The purpose of grammar is for words to make sense; it isn’t an end in itself.
Split Infinitives and Rhythm
There are some intriguing slants on familiar debates. Crystal suggests one reason we are drawn to splitting infinitives is the more natural (iambic) rhythm that can result. (“To boldly go” is weak-strong-weak-strong, but “to go boldly” is weak-strong-strong-weak) He also gives examples where it changes the meaning (“He completely failed to understand” and “He failed to completely understand.”).
Standard English - When it's Good, and When it's Not
Crystal argues that standard English is important so that people from different groups and regions can understand each other, but that non-standard dialects are important for diversity and for group identity. We wear different clothes for different situations and similarly we use different language. Prescriptivists are too fond of “always” and “never”, ignoring context. They are so afraid of ambiguity they seek it where context means it doesn’t exist, and then they apply rules blindly, without exception. He even suggests some of them were so bullied by strict grammarians that they developed Stockholm Syndrome!
That intriguing hyperbole aside, I agree with almost every word in this well-balanced book and can’t recommend it enough.
Potted History and Random Thoughts
Over and Passive Learning: Written and Spoken Language
The written word requires overt teaching in a way that speech does not. It also requires a degree of standardisation because there are no cues of intonation and body language and recipient cannot indicate if they do not understand.
Hybrid Language
In many cases we have the richness of triplets of subtly different words from Saxon, French and Latin (ask, question, interrogate and rest, remainder, residue).
Many of the other silent letters in English were added to help people by indication the Latin route (e.g. “det” became “debt” from “debitum”).
Neologisms are Fine
Why do we worry about neologisms when Shakespeare coined 1,700 words?
(Except he probably didn't coin them. He wrote them down, and his works survive.)
Standardisation (Dictionaries and Usage Guides) to Limit Change
The first serious attempts at standardisation came with the printing press in 1476. There were no dictionaries, local spelling varied hugely (partly because of differing accents), and many of Caxton’s typesetters were Dutch (inserting “gh” in words such as “ghost”), so plenty of inconsistencies slipped through.
In 1664, there was a possibility of an English Academy (along the lines of Académie française), supported by Dryden and Defoe. The Inkhorn Debate (against excessively long Latinate and Greek words) and the Great Vowel Shift get their fair share of space.
Johnson’s wasn’t the first dictionary, but it was a milestone in comprehensiveness and the fact it included quotations as examples.
Spelling is not immutable. Dr Johnson’s dictionary of ~250 years ago includes many spellings that are completely unfamiliar today, and hyphenation changes too (Swift wrote “now a-days”).
Usage changes, even at a fundamental level. For example, Dryden used double comparatives, such as “Contain your spirit in more stricter bounds”.
The first usage guides appeared in the 18th century and these introduced many rules that bore little relation to English as it was used then (even in literate circles) and which persist today. Often they were extrapolations of Latin grammar that had no relevance to English. The obvious example is the rule about not splitting infinitives because it’s impossible to do so in Latin (each is a single word) although that wasn’t banned till the 19th century. The ban on ending a sentence with a preposition comes from the fact that pre-positions were positioned before nouns. Additional motivation for such rules was to distinguish “polite” speech from “impolite”.
Punctuation Change
Punctuation was largely ignored by dictionaries and usage guides till recently, but is still prone to fashion (e.g. Dickens’ use of semi colons).
For possessive “its” lacking an apostrophe (along with “his” and “hers”), Crystal blames 18th century printers who applied the new rule to nouns but forgot to apply it to pronouns.
Political Change - Noah Webster
Webster deliberately changed American spelling, partly to simplify it, but explicitly to distinguish it from the language of the former colonial power: "As an independent nation, our honor requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government. Great Britain should no longer be OUR standard; for the taste of her writers is already corrupted, and her language on the decline." (I don't think that quotation is in this book, but it's relevant for this review.)
Accent Snobbery
96% of the UK population has a regional accent, yet in WW2 people complained they couldn’t believe the news when it was read by someone with a regional accent. For much more about this, see Crystal's Sounds Appealing (see my review HERE).
Cover
The title, cover and introduction imply this is largely a response to Lynne Truss' Eats, Shoots & Leaves (see my review HERE), but it’s much broader, though she gets many mentions. He was a collaborator on the radio series that spawned her book and he praises and condemns her by turns. Crystal’s main objection is the concept of zero tolerance. show less
This is not an obscure reference work, but a good overview that is accessible to a general audience. For a slightly more academic approach, consider Henry Hitchings' The Language Wars (see my review HERE).
Language Change: Rules versus Comprehension
David Crystal, a respected linguistics professor, cares show more about rules and grammar (and has written grammar guides), but he cares far more about meaning, comprehension and effect.
He explains the history (and future) of the English language, especially in its written form, in lots of short chapters. It is anecdotal, rather than academic, though it has plenty of facts and references to sources as well.
Our language is a melting pot, not a salad bowl, and language change is inevitable. It has been complained about since Chaucer’s time, yet we still have great writers. Crystal concludes that we shouldn't panic about it and that understanding appropriateness is paramount.
Context and Discernment
Knowing how an engine works does not make you a good driver: you need a feel for the medium and situation as well. Consequently, he pleads for discernment in applying rules; appropriateness and context are recurring themes. The purpose of grammar is for words to make sense; it isn’t an end in itself.
Split Infinitives and Rhythm
There are some intriguing slants on familiar debates. Crystal suggests one reason we are drawn to splitting infinitives is the more natural (iambic) rhythm that can result. (“To boldly go” is weak-strong-weak-strong, but “to go boldly” is weak-strong-strong-weak) He also gives examples where it changes the meaning (“He completely failed to understand” and “He failed to completely understand.”).
Standard English - When it's Good, and When it's Not
Crystal argues that standard English is important so that people from different groups and regions can understand each other, but that non-standard dialects are important for diversity and for group identity. We wear different clothes for different situations and similarly we use different language. Prescriptivists are too fond of “always” and “never”, ignoring context. They are so afraid of ambiguity they seek it where context means it doesn’t exist, and then they apply rules blindly, without exception. He even suggests some of them were so bullied by strict grammarians that they developed Stockholm Syndrome!
That intriguing hyperbole aside, I agree with almost every word in this well-balanced book and can’t recommend it enough.
Potted History and Random Thoughts
Over and Passive Learning: Written and Spoken Language
The written word requires overt teaching in a way that speech does not. It also requires a degree of standardisation because there are no cues of intonation and body language and recipient cannot indicate if they do not understand.
Hybrid Language
In many cases we have the richness of triplets of subtly different words from Saxon, French and Latin (ask, question, interrogate and rest, remainder, residue).
Many of the other silent letters in English were added to help people by indication the Latin route (e.g. “det” became “debt” from “debitum”).
Neologisms are Fine
Why do we worry about neologisms when Shakespeare coined 1,700 words?
(Except he probably didn't coin them. He wrote them down, and his works survive.)
Standardisation (Dictionaries and Usage Guides) to Limit Change
The first serious attempts at standardisation came with the printing press in 1476. There were no dictionaries, local spelling varied hugely (partly because of differing accents), and many of Caxton’s typesetters were Dutch (inserting “gh” in words such as “ghost”), so plenty of inconsistencies slipped through.
In 1664, there was a possibility of an English Academy (along the lines of Académie française), supported by Dryden and Defoe. The Inkhorn Debate (against excessively long Latinate and Greek words) and the Great Vowel Shift get their fair share of space.
Johnson’s wasn’t the first dictionary, but it was a milestone in comprehensiveness and the fact it included quotations as examples.
Spelling is not immutable. Dr Johnson’s dictionary of ~250 years ago includes many spellings that are completely unfamiliar today, and hyphenation changes too (Swift wrote “now a-days”).
Usage changes, even at a fundamental level. For example, Dryden used double comparatives, such as “Contain your spirit in more stricter bounds”.
The first usage guides appeared in the 18th century and these introduced many rules that bore little relation to English as it was used then (even in literate circles) and which persist today. Often they were extrapolations of Latin grammar that had no relevance to English. The obvious example is the rule about not splitting infinitives because it’s impossible to do so in Latin (each is a single word) although that wasn’t banned till the 19th century. The ban on ending a sentence with a preposition comes from the fact that pre-positions were positioned before nouns. Additional motivation for such rules was to distinguish “polite” speech from “impolite”.
Punctuation Change
Punctuation was largely ignored by dictionaries and usage guides till recently, but is still prone to fashion (e.g. Dickens’ use of semi colons).
For possessive “its” lacking an apostrophe (along with “his” and “hers”), Crystal blames 18th century printers who applied the new rule to nouns but forgot to apply it to pronouns.
Political Change - Noah Webster
Webster deliberately changed American spelling, partly to simplify it, but explicitly to distinguish it from the language of the former colonial power: "As an independent nation, our honor requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government. Great Britain should no longer be OUR standard; for the taste of her writers is already corrupted, and her language on the decline." (I don't think that quotation is in this book, but it's relevant for this review.)
Accent Snobbery
96% of the UK population has a regional accent, yet in WW2 people complained they couldn’t believe the news when it was read by someone with a regional accent. For much more about this, see Crystal's Sounds Appealing (see my review HERE).
Cover
The title, cover and introduction imply this is largely a response to Lynne Truss' Eats, Shoots & Leaves (see my review HERE), but it’s much broader, though she gets many mentions. He was a collaborator on the radio series that spawned her book and he praises and condemns her by turns. Crystal’s main objection is the concept of zero tolerance. show less
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