There is also one manner of speaking for the pulpit and another for the lecture-platform, one manner for the judge in court and another for the stump orator. The line of demarcation between formal and colloquial English is not sharp, just as it is not between colloquial and popular English. The style of some authors or public speakers, for example, is decidedly more colloquial, more familiar, than that of others.
With all, however, whatever the degree of formality, the dependence of the literary speech upon the colloquial speech of natural intercourse is necessary. It is from the colloquial speech that the literary speech has its vitality. If left to itself, its tendency would be to develop into a highly specialized and artificial form of expression--a special high-caste language for literature that would grow less and less real and expressive as it detached itself more and more from the colloquial speech in which the common human concerns of life and death find their most intimate expression. It is perhaps better, therefore, to speak of these three kinds of speech, popular, colloquial, and literary, not as three distinct and separate species, but rather as three tendencies of development of what is at bottom one speech, and that a popular speech in the sense that it comes directly from the experiences of men and women, in the immediate affairs of life. Language, as Walt Whitman says, "is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground.
Its final decisions are made by the masses, people nearest the concrete, having most to do with actual land and sea."
Each of these three tendencies of English speech has its appropriate uses. They are three kinds of arrows with which different speakers at different moments strive to hit the mark of good English. To hit the mark of the serious literary style, one does not use the arrow of the obviously colloquial speech, and still less of popular speech. To hit the mark in colloquial conversation, one does not use the arrow of the formal speech, nor, among cultivated persons, of the popular speech, unless indeed one is ignorant of the fact that the usages are regarded as popular by the person whom one is addressing. The popular speech naturally does not often come into conflict with the colloquial speech of polite conversation, or with the formal speech, since the characteristic of the popular speaker is his ignorance of the other forms of speech. For the same reason the speech of polite conversation does not, and need not, adapt itself to the popular speech when speakers of the two kinds come into contact with each other. Otherwise it is assumed "that a man of taste and ability will modify his use of language to meet the special requirements of the task proposed. He will have learned by study to distinguish between different tones and values in the instrument of speech, and will have acquired by exercise the power of touching that mighty organ of expression to various issues" [John Addington Symonds, Essays, Speculative and Suggestive, 1890, Vol. I, page 267].
It thus appears, if the above statements are true, that language which may be adequately expressive, and therefore good, under one set of circumstances, under a different set of circumstances becomes inadequately expressive, because it says more or less than the speaker intended, and so becomes bad English. One learns thus the lesson of the complete relativity of the value of language, that there is no such thing as an absolute English, but that language is valuable only as it effects the purpose one wishes to attain, that what is good at one time may be bad at another, and what is bad at one time may be good at another.
Speech communities
But something further must be said about that tendency of English which results in what is known as the conventional, or standard, English. It is not necessary to discuss here why mankind strives to formulate customs and habits into a fixed system. The fact itself is obvious. Through this natural instinct, as we may call it, in all our social customs, of daily manners, of dress, of morals, of speech, more or less regularized systems of conduct grow up. In language, each community, whether it is large or small, has a general understanding that this or that pronunciation, or, this or that rule of grammar, is the accepted standard, or conventional, one. This general understanding is arrived at in a purely voluntary, and often at first unconscious, way. Nobody imposes, nobody has the power to impose, any rules of standard speech on a community. As we have before pointed out, a rule is merely the statement of the general custom of a community. We might, consequently, speak of the standard popular, the standard colloquial, and the standard literary speech of this or that geographical community. Usually, however, the term is understood in a somewhat more limited sense. It is used to signify not merely the customary use of a community, but especially that use when it is recognized and acknowledged as the good use of that community. Any usage which is thus given its patent of respectability is regarded as standard use. It is customary use raised to the position of conscious legalized use. Of course the question of standard does not arise until there is some conflict of standards. As in the case of civil law, no customary practice is legalized, or standardized, until doubts are raised with respect to it, until some one attempts to depart from the customary practice. Then it is necessary to come to some agreement as to what shall be recognized as the accepted practice. In the case of civil law this is done either through the passing of a formal law by some legislative body, or through the decisions handed down by judges in passing upon disputed cases of customary and accepted practice in the dealings of men with each other.
Concluded on page three
With all, however, whatever the degree of formality, the dependence of the literary speech upon the colloquial speech of natural intercourse is necessary. It is from the colloquial speech that the literary speech has its vitality. If left to itself, its tendency would be to develop into a highly specialized and artificial form of expression--a special high-caste language for literature that would grow less and less real and expressive as it detached itself more and more from the colloquial speech in which the common human concerns of life and death find their most intimate expression. It is perhaps better, therefore, to speak of these three kinds of speech, popular, colloquial, and literary, not as three distinct and separate species, but rather as three tendencies of development of what is at bottom one speech, and that a popular speech in the sense that it comes directly from the experiences of men and women, in the immediate affairs of life. Language, as Walt Whitman says, "is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground.
Its final decisions are made by the masses, people nearest the concrete, having most to do with actual land and sea."
Each of these three tendencies of English speech has its appropriate uses. They are three kinds of arrows with which different speakers at different moments strive to hit the mark of good English. To hit the mark of the serious literary style, one does not use the arrow of the obviously colloquial speech, and still less of popular speech. To hit the mark in colloquial conversation, one does not use the arrow of the formal speech, nor, among cultivated persons, of the popular speech, unless indeed one is ignorant of the fact that the usages are regarded as popular by the person whom one is addressing. The popular speech naturally does not often come into conflict with the colloquial speech of polite conversation, or with the formal speech, since the characteristic of the popular speaker is his ignorance of the other forms of speech. For the same reason the speech of polite conversation does not, and need not, adapt itself to the popular speech when speakers of the two kinds come into contact with each other. Otherwise it is assumed "that a man of taste and ability will modify his use of language to meet the special requirements of the task proposed. He will have learned by study to distinguish between different tones and values in the instrument of speech, and will have acquired by exercise the power of touching that mighty organ of expression to various issues" [John Addington Symonds, Essays, Speculative and Suggestive, 1890, Vol. I, page 267].
It thus appears, if the above statements are true, that language which may be adequately expressive, and therefore good, under one set of circumstances, under a different set of circumstances becomes inadequately expressive, because it says more or less than the speaker intended, and so becomes bad English. One learns thus the lesson of the complete relativity of the value of language, that there is no such thing as an absolute English, but that language is valuable only as it effects the purpose one wishes to attain, that what is good at one time may be bad at another, and what is bad at one time may be good at another.
Speech communities
But something further must be said about that tendency of English which results in what is known as the conventional, or standard, English. It is not necessary to discuss here why mankind strives to formulate customs and habits into a fixed system. The fact itself is obvious. Through this natural instinct, as we may call it, in all our social customs, of daily manners, of dress, of morals, of speech, more or less regularized systems of conduct grow up. In language, each community, whether it is large or small, has a general understanding that this or that pronunciation, or, this or that rule of grammar, is the accepted standard, or conventional, one. This general understanding is arrived at in a purely voluntary, and often at first unconscious, way. Nobody imposes, nobody has the power to impose, any rules of standard speech on a community. As we have before pointed out, a rule is merely the statement of the general custom of a community. We might, consequently, speak of the standard popular, the standard colloquial, and the standard literary speech of this or that geographical community. Usually, however, the term is understood in a somewhat more limited sense. It is used to signify not merely the customary use of a community, but especially that use when it is recognized and acknowledged as the good use of that community. Any usage which is thus given its patent of respectability is regarded as standard use. It is customary use raised to the position of conscious legalized use. Of course the question of standard does not arise until there is some conflict of standards. As in the case of civil law, no customary practice is legalized, or standardized, until doubts are raised with respect to it, until some one attempts to depart from the customary practice. Then it is necessary to come to some agreement as to what shall be recognized as the accepted practice. In the case of civil law this is done either through the passing of a formal law by some legislative body, or through the decisions handed down by judges in passing upon disputed cases of customary and accepted practice in the dealings of men with each other.
Concluded on page three
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