I’ve been teaching English for a long time, but the history of English rules never ceases to amaze me.
To say it’s a messy language is putting it mildly. However, that’s also the beauty of English. It’s a language that’s alive, evolving, and adapting; unbridled from convention and regulation.
While its history goes back centuries, change has been constant, as if it stubbornly refuses to be chained by orthodoxy.
Yes, as writers, we all know our grammar and spelling rules, but we also know that exception to the rule is very often a rule in itself.
Why grammar and spelling survived centuries of chaos
Unlike some other languages, English rules haven’t survived because of decisions by a controlling body. They survive through linguistic accidents, traditions, and habits.
However, the advent of the printing press played a major role in transforming the history of English rules. Early dictionaries tried to set or fix spelling rules, whether correct or not. But because they were in print, these became “correct.”
From that point on, teachers and grammarians reinforced the rules, treating the printed page as gospel.
Many of the grammar rules were based on Latin, as it was seen as a superior language. These included rules for split infinitives and prepositions ending sentences.
Even though spoken English resisted these rules, prestige kept French and Latin influences in writing, as it was seen as a sign of the educated class.
An equally important influence was the transportation of English to many parts of the world, particularly through the expansion of the British Empire. The effect was a proliferation of different dialects, pronunciations, and grammar.
One man who tried to tame the language was Noah Webster. His first dictionary was published in 1806, and so began his quest to simplify spelling and its rules. It marked the beginning of the divide between British and US English.
Although his revision of English remained mostly in the US for nearly 200 years, the Internet changed how we communicate. The effect of this has been a confusing mess of US and British English being mixed, blended, and at the same time, accepted.
The result has been a growing inclination by writers to bend, break, or twist these new quirks of our language.
Yes, English is chaotic, but that’s also part of the charm. It has not survived in spite of this, but rather, because of it.
Grammar rules that survived by mistake
Many English grammar rules have remained despite their imperfection. Some are the result of tradition, but many are weird interpretations borrowed from other languages.
Up until and during Victorian times in Britain, French and Latin were still the languages of the upper class, royalty, business, and government.
Because of this, grammarians of the time insisted on controlling English (then seen as a lesser language) by using grammar from Latin.
One example was that splitting an infinitive in Latin was impossible; therefore, it should apply to English.
It didn’t matter that the infinitive in Latin was only one word, but in English, two. The rule is the rule.
Another example is the rule about not ending a sentence with a preposition. John Dryden is credited with creating this one in the 17th century. He believed that, as a Latin sentence cannot end with a preposition, neither should it in English.
His rule still lives on for many, despite its awkwardness.
But it was Winston Churchill who highlighted the absurdity of the rule.
“This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.”
Whom is another relic from the past, even if it is the not too distant past.
When I was at school, it was drilled into our heads that whom was the object pronoun and who was the subject. It was also good grammar, because it so often avoided using a preposition at the end of a sentence. (Two outdated, but surviving rules in one.)
Other rules, such as never starting a sentence with a conjunction or that the passive voice should always be avoided, are relics.
But they stay because, like many old rules, they appeared in print; therefore, it was correct, and followed by teachers, writers, and grammarians.
So, I guess you can blame the printing press for making these rules so strict for so long.
The chaos of spelling and pronunciation
Grammar rules may have survived by accident or mistake, but spelling and pronunciation have survived and evolved from uncontained chaos.
Because English borrows so much from other languages (including Old and Middle English), it’s impossible to define any predictable patterns of use.
Silent letters in writing, such as K, G, B, P, and W, are still with us in words like know, gnome, doubt, and write. Yet the old pronunciation of words like these disappeared hundreds of years ago.
Let’s not forget the cluster of “ough” words: though, through, tough, cough, bough, drought. Even though some have pushed for change with words like coff, enuff, bow, and thru, we continue to resist.
The chaotic nature of English spelling and pronunciation is captured brilliantly in the 1922 poem, The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenité.
In the first two stanzas, he begins:
Dearest creature in creation,
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.
The 274-line poem is both humorous and exhausting, yet captures the beauty and madness of our language.
I used it occasionally with my students, and without fail, they groaned, grumbled, and complained before attempting to read a single verse aloud; usually unsuccessfully.
Because spelling has been compiled, printed, and carried forward in editions of dictionaries, vocabulary and pronunciation have stuck fast and standardized the chaotic quirks.
That’s why English is not a language of logic, but one needing a reliance on pure memory.
The absurdities we simply accept
Do you remember being taught, “I before E, except after C”, as if it were a defining rule?
I do, and I made sure I never uttered this rule to my students because it’s a weird rule that breaks all the time.
It’s often because of borrowed words from French, but English has plenty of its own, like their, height, protein either, and neither.
Then there are the relics of the past, such as knight and night. What is now a silent K used to be pronounced. But over time, because of the difficulty with the sound, the pronunciation changed, but the spelling remained the same.
The word receipt is a nice double whammy of a silent P, and ignoring the “I before E” rule.
I could delve into island and isle, but instead, I’ll let my dictionary do the talking.
Old English īegland, from īeg ‘island’ (from a base meaning ‘watery, watered’) + land. The change in the spelling of the first syllable in the 16th century was due to association with the unrelated word isle.
Well, that cleared things up, didn’t it?
In truth, I think we all love our language because of its chaotic, eccentric attempts at applying rules that don’t work. That makes it much easier to break them, at will.
Conclusion
English is a beautiful mess. But it has survived a long history of English rules that tried to undo the messiness, without much success.
Yes, it’s a patchwork quilt of a language evolving from invasions, conquests, borrowings, inventions, and accidents.
Yet, despite this, the popularity, practicality, and usefulness are still spreading the English language to all corners of the globe.
In most part, it is because of the Internet. However, diplomacy was a crucial factor, gradually moving from French to English during the mid-twentieth century.
For writers, all of the absurdities are a playground for creativity, invention, and bending or breaking rules.
No one is looking over your shoulder with a book of steadfast rules or guiding principles any longer. So, write, and write your way.
Related Reading: 10 Writing Rules That Are Waiting For You To Break
