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Language Wars, Samuel Johnson's dictionary in 1755- only introduced…
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Samuel Johnson's dictionary in 1755- only introduced dictionary initially for financial gain and didn't include slang lexemes
Only based his dictionary off of written sources in previous literature within the last 200 years, claimed that etymology would be the mechanism for producing his definitions
It was evident that Johnson stigmatised certain lexemes and identified some words as 'low', 'cant' and 'barbarous' as well as labels like 'improper', 'redundant', 'bad', and even 'vicious'.
Johnson omitted French lexemes such as 'boquette','liqueur' and 'vignette' from the dictionary due to his suspicions of words imported from French
Hugh Blair ' Lectures on rhetoric' 1983 claimed that French is possibly the happiest language in conversation in the known world
It can be argued that Johnson also conveyed linguistic patriarchy through the language of the working man and the poor through prejudices of 'miners language' and accent/dialect
His dictionary relied on the work of John Wallis, Ben Jonson and Lily's grammar
His work within the dictionary can be argued to reflect the inner battle that occurred within his intellectual conscience and the quarrel between descriptivism and prescriptivism
Robert Lowth 'Introduction to English grammar' 1762 is the founder of prescriptivism however his work is wrongly looked down upon in comparison to Johnson's dictionary
The public claim that 'Bishop Lowth was a fool' after Robert Dodsley encouraged Lowth to publish his book (alike Johnson)
However, Lowth's work took off in Britain, America and Germany and soon became a prestigious book containing solutions to the linguistic problem of a modern world
It is claimed that the essence of his grammar rules were largely influenced by Latin, yet not undermining his love for Hebrew
Erroneous use of adjectives instead of adverbs, 'you was' in the 17th century and the use of 'worser'. He also enforced the distinction between 'would' and 'should' as well as double negatives
'Grammar is the art of rightly expressing our thoughts by words' - implying it is an acquired ability governed by aesthetics
Excessive use of apostrophes in possessive determiners 'his, hers, ours'
Claims that in formal written English it is unacceptable to end a sentence with a preposition, but accepts the practice in familiar use
Lowth would bend his rules within his use of English and was inconsistent with his habits, focuses on language usage rather than structure
Robert Dodsley was Lowth and Johnson's publisher, recognised as one of the period's most powerful publishers
Johnson and Lowth mark the beginning of the period in which the style of written English becomes more formal
Johnson, Lowth and Priestley all contributed to changes in the use of the English language
Joseph Priestley was one of the period's one descriptive voice, insisted that there should be no institution to lay down specific rules of English
Lindley Murray 'English Grammar' published in 1795, John Walker 'A critical pronouncing dictionary' 1791, success of Murray was due to social connections
Murray's book was written for the benefit of a girl's school 'Trinity' in York, yet it sparked arguments of plagiarism from Lowth and Blair's books
Murray adopted a prescriptivist approach and based his novel largely on syntax rules but his work was criticised by William Hazllit
Murray had nothing to say about slang, but would dismiss its usage
Grose argued that the nature of slang was a reflection of liberty in society, studied the relationship between language and relationships as he investigated the development of English in non speaking countries