Postscript I — to the present day

Abstract

The object of this book has been to describe how present-day Standard English has developed from its origins in Old English a thousand years ago, and effectively ends in the 18th century, since when there have been only minimal changes in the grammar of the standard language. This is not to deny that there are clear differences between the way that the language has been written and spoken in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. But such differences belong rather to style or language use than to the underlying language system. There was in the 18th century a multiplicity of spoken regional and social dialects, largely unrecorded, and this is still so.