Robert Lowth is considered responsible for some of the hoariest non-rules of the English language
rules of grammar come from? Even those who care about the subject rarely, if ever, ask that question. The rules are simply the rules, passed down in good grammar books. But who wrote the first one, and how?
In the mid-18th century there were few studies of English grammar, and none was comprehensive or authoritative. Furthermore, the first major grammarians of English were working before modern linguistic methods—based on evidence and comparison—had evolved. They used a combination of logic, Latin analogies and their own instincts. Unfortunately, some of the missteps they made as a result still hold sway. The now obscure but once feted contribution of Robert Lowth is a case in point.
His grammar was cannily marketed, says Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, a Dutch linguist. Its print-run was unprecedented. One reader, William Cobbett, is said to have learned its text by heart, and would himself go on to write a popular grammar in 1818. Another follower, Lindley Murray, plagiarised it shamelessly; his own grammar was a runaway bestseller in both Britain and America. These disciples greatly magnified Lowth’s legacy.
All these “incorrect” usages were in rude health among fine English authors in the centuries before Lowth. But he thought even the best authors were often wrong; he copiously cites mistakes that he identified in the King James Bible, Swift, Addison, Dryden, Milton, Pope and Shakespeare.
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