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December 2000

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Subject:
"perfectly literate country before 1852"
From:
"Richard Veit, UNCW English Department" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 14 Dec 2000 10:21:37 -0500
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I'm no psychologist, but there must be something about language that
inspires myths among the disgruntled about a golden past. The fantasy of a
"perfectly literate country" before compulsory public education is the
latest offshoot. Usually the myths are variations on the following themes:

"Students spoke and wrote English beautifully a generation ago, but today
they are ignorant and illiterate."
"The English Language is deteriorating and was far superior in the past."
"Today's immigrants don't want to learn English the way previous immigrants
did."

The wonderful thing about these myths is that they are timeless. Twenty
years ago, fifty years ago, two hundred, a thousand--the same disgruntled
people were uttering the very same sentiments about a supposed golden age
departed. Harvey Daniels, in his book Famous Lost Words: The American
Language Crisis Reconsidered, cites dozens of "language crisis" quotations
from antiquity to the present.

All of the myths are untrue. Students have always had problems acquiring
standard conventions, languages always change, and immigrant communities
always acquire English at a near-identical rate. Many need their myths,
however, and prefer them over reality, so a generation from now we can be
certain to hear laments for the glorious golden age of 2000.

Dick Veit
UNCW

Discovering English Grammar <http://www.uncwil.edu/people/veit/DEG/>





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