[Gllug] plurals
Chris Bell
chrisbell at overview.demon.co.uk
Sat Jun 21 10:09:05 UTC 2003
On Fri 20 Jun, Dylan wrote:
>
>
> Just to be fair - I should mention that I am a theoretical linguist
> specialising in English syntax and morphology. Sorry.
>
It is not that long since there were very few people who had any claim to
be able to read or write English, and most of them had their own ideas about
what was correct (if they cared at all). Almost every village had its own
dialect, so spoken English was also diverse. Official records were often an
attempt by someone who could only just claim to be able to write, to record
phonetically what was said by others. I believe that the rules of written
language are often an attempt to specify what the majority of people might
understand to be correct, in the same way that spelling often attempted to
imitate the different ways that words were pronounced in various parts of
the country.
--
Chris Bell
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