Sandra Dodd

Holly knows the difference between everyday (an adjective) and every
day (an adverbial phrase) but she doesn't know that latter term, I
don't think. She knows if you're telling what kind of thing (an
everyday dress or an everyday occurrence) it's one word, and if
you're telling when you do it, you might do so every day). That's
something being lost among the 30-somethings of the world. But
English changes. It always has. Victorian grammar books tried to
put the brakes on it, but it's too large an omnibus even for those
19th century Brits who were *sure* their culture was the highest and
best possible expression of mankind. Others bought into their self-
satisfaction, though, too, and STILL kids are pressed to read
Treasure Island as a classic piece of literature.

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I wrote that in another thread but I pulled it out to start a new trail.

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Even with grammar, there is history and culture and geography. (With
everything there is everything, and with every single topic can come
every other topic.)

England in the late 19th century was pretty damned proud of itself
and Victoria was "By the Grace of God, Queen of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Empress of
India." She had some other titles too, but no matter. If they
were the greatest power ever (as they were quite sure they were),
then their language and culture must be the big IT. So Australia
and New Zealand and Canada and even the U.S. tended to want to keep
up with or be up on the in crowd with English as it should be, I
think, and that all happened with books.

Reading Dickens was cool because he wrote sometimes in other
dialects, but it was clear that the narrator was the "right"
dialect. Mark Twain was doing some of the same in the U.S. a little
later.

We (all English-speaking countries) would have drifted much further
apart linguistically had it not been for radio, TV and movies.

So I think the Victorians and the state of the economy and the
industrial age making paper production and printing less expensive
and whatever all advances were involved with linotype machines and
all that--it was a way to solidify language. MANY people thought
this was good, and good enough, and English should be and stay
codified. It was like damming up a river, though. You can't keep
ALL the water in.

There is a balance, a tension, between conservatism and radicalism,
between "stop" and "go," between
TIME OUT. I was talking to Kirby the other day by phone about using
semi-colons to punctuate series sometimes, and this is one of those
times I'm going to, but before I take that sentence and revise it
(not study it for a test, as "revise" means in England, but change
it) I'm going to say that I need to send this to Kirby now, because I
didn't have a reason then to tell him that although commas usually go
inside quotes, semi-colons never do.

Backing up and going again:

There is a balance, a tension, between conservatism and radicalism;
between "stop" and "go"; between tradition and slang. That
compromise is what makes things grow at a pace people can follow.
Some people don't want a single "rule" to change. Some want ALL the
rules to change. And so some of the rules change.

Sandra

P.S. I wrote "STILL kids are pressed to read Treasure Island as a
classic piece of literature."

Treasure Island is fine, but the writing is archaic and the sentences
are L-o-n-g and it takes forever to get to action. At the time it
was new, it was like Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark. In an
age when kids can play video games where they can make decisions to
change the action, Treasure Island is an antique. It inspired some
really great illustrations. It almost single-handedly fuels "talk
like a pirate day."