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The rise of prescriptivism

The uncertainties of the 16th and 17th century about the suitability of English as a language of science and learning led to quite massive borrowing from classical languages. It also engendered a frame of mind where people thought English was deficient and this in its turn gave rise to many musings in print about just what constitutes correct English. With this one has the birth of the prescriptive tradition which has lasted to this very day. Much of this was well-meaning: scholars of the time misunderstood the nature of language variation and sought to bring order into what they saw as chaos. Frequently this merged with the view that regional varieties of English were only deserving of contempt, a view found with many eminent writers such as Jonathan Swift who was quite conservative in his linguistic opinions. The basic difficulty which the present-day linguist sees in the prescriptive recommendations of such authors is that they are entirely arbitrary. There is no justification for the likes and dislikes of prescriptive authors. These writers are self-appointed guardians and defenders of what they regard as good style. They established a tradition which was to have considerable influence in English society and was continued in a remorseless fashion by such authors as Henry Watson Fowler (1858-1933) who saw it as their mission in life to wage war on what they regarded as signs of decay and decline in the English language.

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