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/>