Crowley: War of Words

1. What does "elocution" mean? What are elocution lessons? Do they exist in Spanish?

"Elocution" is the ability to speak clearly, correctly and without a strong accent. Elocution lessons are lessons in which they teach you how to speak properly. I think they exist in Spanish. At least, politics should have them.

2. What do "polyglossia" and "monoglossia" mean?

"Polyglossia" is the coexsistence of multiple languages in the same are. "Monoglossia" is the supremacy of one language in an area.

3. What kind of English does Puttenham recommend?

The usual speech of the court in London.

4. What does "copious" mean?

In large amounts.

5. What does "trope" mean?

Any literary or rethorical device, that consists in the use of words in other than their literal sense.

6. Why does Crowley call the standarization process a war?

Because the linkage of language and war was a very common trope in the 18th. century.

7. What does "encomium" mean?

A formal expression of high praise.

7. Who wrote the "Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue?

Swift.

8. Do Johnson and Swift agree that the English language has degenerated?

Yes, because both of them use the trope of the linkage of language and politics.

9. Swift proposed an academy. Who else?

Dryden, Addison, Defoe and Wilson.

10. Why were the Whigs against an academy?

Because the academy was identified, to Whig eyes at least, with France, and thus with the Stuart claimants to the monarchy; and second, it had been instituted by Cardenal Richilieu, an aristocratic Catholic.

11. What does Sheridan mean by "the genious of our people"?

The metaphysical spirit of the English people.

12. What reason does Swift give for the "decay of Latin"?

Totalitarism.

14. What does "suffer" in the line 2 of page 66 mean?

15. Who was the first person, involved in German cultural nationalism, to make the link between language and nation?

Herder.

16. What was Sheridan's solution to the problem of divergence in pronunciation? The clergy should be tought pronunciation in order that they could act as the medium by which it could be propagated.

17. How did several authors describe other European languages?

Do you agree with this kind of classification?

18. In which novel did Daniel Defoe capture the "colonial fantasy"?

Robinson Crusoe.

19. Locke though that learning Latin was not necessary for which group of people?

For tradesmen.

20. How did learning to speak English using standard English empower people?

It procured them respect and was highly conductive to their advancement in life.

21. What kind of English is deemed to be "proper" English? The English spoken in London, at universities and in the court.

22. How was the inculcation of linguistic patterns carried out with middle-class children?

By discipline, punishment and education.

23. What was the purpose of training women linguistically in the 18th century according to Crowley?

The purpose of training women linguistically was to raise children and to act as a companion to the male in the public sphere.

24. Why did Locke warn against children talking to servants?

Because they could pick up bad habits.

25. What was the difference between the mistakes made by the working classes and those made by the gentry according to Sheridan?

Working classes had a provincial or vicious pronunciation and gentry had only occasional mistakes.

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