So why do so many call a looking glass a ‘mirr’? Or the things that Bin Laden organised, ‘terr’, and his followers ‘terrists’? Even granting your ‘tend’ qualifier, I feel you may be generalising far too widely on the basis of very limited and selective evidence. My suspicion was always that Wor-ces-ter was said rather than ‘Wooster’ simply because so many Americans had not come across it audibly before. Rather like Cholmondeley (Chumley).
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Ironically one of the most mispronounced words. I mean, the pronunciation is right there.
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You could just drop the of and retain the sense, a cantilevered deck might be built off the second story.
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Yes, this argument is all too simplistic for me. Maybe the printing press meant there was more care taken over a single page if hundreds of copies were to be produced, but it is not the only thing by any means.
Chaucer wrote in English. There is something like a hundred years between Chaucer and Caxton. Caxton remembered the English spoken was very different in his youth, so he is remembering the transition from Middle English, but that happened before printing. The Edwardian vowel shift is much more recent, but just not recent enough to blame the wireless. Languages just change sometimes.
Sometimes, particular authors do make a difference. Much of the ‘-ough’ nonsense can be blamed on Dr. Johnson, and the first dictionary. Some people used ‘-ough’ besides him, but he used it more widely than most. Some of the rules of grammar, like not splitting infinitives, were deliberate attempts to make English are like Latin or Greek. A lot of words came from Shakespeare. Many others came from Victorian authors such as Thackeray. They poached Latin and Greek. Scientists made new terms from classical roots.
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Determining skill at writing depends on the criteria used to judge it. I’m sure you recognize the thought from one prolific American writer that the difference between the right word and the nearly right word is like the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
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Perhaps “in print” has different meanings in today’s world. I have nearly completely moved away from physical pages of printed words in favor of the little squiggles on my computer screen, and I may have erred in describing some of the sources I read there(here?) as “reputable.” For example, I read the articles offered on Yahoo!, including those by organizations other than Yahoo! itself, and I assume the people writing them are compensated and thus may be considered professional writers, and that is what I experience as modern English usage.
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It depends on how far back you wish to date capitalism. Obviously you don’t think it’s as late as the mid nineteeth century.
To be fair, 3 generations ago is quite long enough a time for language to evolve.
Just look at the regrettable language this dude uses.
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Fair. “Market forces” then?
Either way it’s less about the technology and more about the economics driving the technology - as ever it has been.
When English spelling was inconsistent, the crown habitually granted monopolies and took a cut, More mercantilist than capitalist, and insulated from anything resembling market pressures.
The printers themselves were all licensed and controlled through the “Worshipful Company of Stationers”, which, of course, enjoyed a monopoly.
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Quite right. I was in high school sixty years ago, and that is when I learned the fundamentals of “proper” English. And I have observed since then that it is the English that I learned then that is used in government, commerce, international affairs, and normally by those who have at least some claim to being “well-educated.”
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Different use of language for different effect and different audience.
Music is used to communicate thoughts, feelings and other expressions. Just as you don’t agree with rap as being proper English, I can’t imagine any musician choosing to release a song that sounds like an excerpt from a law book or a scientific paper.
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An interesting cul de sac-- Ji Ma’s PhD thesis Constructing a Linguistic Commonwealth in Tudor England: John Hart and the Religio-Political Conceptualization of Orthographic Reform, which describes an early, failed attempt to reform English spelling.
John Hart’s rhetorical strategy seems absolutely bonkers.
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Well, its lyrics are not like a scientific paper, but they are sciency. 
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
And there’s also the elements but it is hardly a passage of writing, more like just a list.
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It’s not really my point though.
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Oh, sure. That’s clear. But it’s late and I’m feeling flippant. Sorry.
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It lasted a bit longer, though only in a few places. For instance, one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, written in English by the monks of Peterborough Abbey, contains an account of the Anarchy of 1135-1154 (including the famous line about how “they said openly that Christ and his saints slept”).
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Basing what we SHOULD do on what things were like 60 years ago is not the best practice. In 1961, we also had segregation in our public schools and other places. I assume you agree that that was a bad thing and it’s better to not have people who are officially second class citizens.
I’m also guessing that if you look at a grammar book now and 60 years ago, they are different. Because even “official” rules of grammar has changed, because language has changed.
So, the only people whose usage matters to you are those who are in leadership roles or who you believe to be “well-educated”? Is there some reason why you give them more weight than the rest of humanity and their use of language? What makes them “inherently” better at communication, which is the entire GOAL of language in the first place, than the rest of humanity, or more deserving of your deference?
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It’s interesting to explore why English is more inconsistent than the continental tongues, as each has a different story as to why they settled on more consistent rules. In the German states, it was the Luther bible translation that defined the language until Konrad Duden set the first unified spelling dictionary. And in France, it was Cardinal Richelieu when he founded the Academie Francaise to rule the language with an iron fist. Italy didn’t have rules until they unified, and chose the Florentine dialect because of Dante’s Divine Comedy being the root of what Italian became.
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