num_pages: 326
description: For language buffs and lexicographers copy editors and proofreaders and anyone who appreciates the connection between language and culturethe illuminating story of proper English. In its long history the English language has had many lawmakersthose who have tried to regulate or otherwise organize the way we speak. The Lexicographers Dilemma offers the first narrative history of these endeavors showing clearly that what we now regard as the only correct way to speak emerged out of specific historical and social conditions over the course of centuries.As literary historian Jack Lynch has discovered every rule has a human history and the characters peopling his narrative are as interesting for their obsession as for their erudition. The struggle between prescriptivists who prescribe a correct approach and descriptivists who analyze how language works is at the heart of Lynchs story. From the sharp-tongued satirist Jonathan Swift who called for a governmentsponsored academy to issue rulings on the language and the polymath Samuel Johnson who put dictionaries on a new footing to John Horne Tooke the crackpot linguist whose bizarre theories continue to baffle scholars; Joseph Priestley whose political radicalism prompted riots; and the ever-crotchety Noah Webster whose goal was to Americanize the English languageLynch brings to life a varied cast as illuminating as it is entertaining.Grammatical rules or laws are not like the law of gravity or laws against theft or murdertheyre more like rules of etiquette made by fallible people and subject to change. Charting the evolution of English Jack Lynch puts todays debateswhether about Ebonics in the schools or split infinitives in the New York Timesin a rich historical context and makes us appreciate anew the hard-won standards we now enjoy.
language: English
title: The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of "Proper" English, from Shakespeare to South Park
publisher: Walker Books