首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
There was relatively little communication back and forth between colonies and homeland in the earliest days, and in consequence
There was relatively little communication back and forth between colonies and homeland in the earliest days, and in consequence
admin
2013-05-29
79
问题
There was relatively little communication back and forth between colonies and homeland in the earliest days, and in consequence the majority of Americanisms were seldom if ever heard in England. By an unhappy chance the beginnings of more frequent intercourse coincided precisely with that rise of Parism in speech which marked the age of Queen Anne. The first Englishman to sound the alarm against Americanisms was one Francis Moor who visited Georgia with Oglethorpe in 1780. In Savannah, then a village but two years old, he heard the word bluff applied to a steep bank and was so unpleasantly affected by it that he denounced it as "barbarous." He was followed by a gradually increasing stream of other linguistic policemen, and by 1781 the Rev John Witherspoon, who had come out in 1769 to be president of Princeton, was printing a headlong attack upon American speech habits, not only on the level of the folk but also higher up indeed, clear to the top. "I have heard in this country," he wrote, "in the senate, and from the pulpit, and see daily in dissertations from the press, errors in grammar, improprieties, and vulgarisms which hardly any person of the same class in point of rank and literature would have fallen into in Great Britain."
Withers poon’s attack made some impression but only in academic circles. The generality of Americans, insofar as they heard of it at all dismissed its author as a mere Englishman (he was actually a Scotsman), and hence somehow inferior and ridiculous. The former colonies were now sovereign states, and their somewhat cocky citizens thought that they were under no obligation to heed admonitions from a defeated and effete empire 3,000 miles across the sea. Even before the Declaration of Independence the anonymous author, suppose to have been John Adams, proposed formally that an American Society of Language be set up to "polish" the American language on strictly American principles, and on Sept. 30, 1780, Adams wrote and signed a letter to the president of Congress renewing this proposal. "Let it be carried out." he said, "and England will never more have any honor, excepting now and then that of imitating the Americans." He was joined in 1789 by the redoubtable Noah Webster, who predicted the rise in the new Republic of a "language as different from the future language of England as the modern Dutch, Danish, and Swedish are from the German, or from one another."
The English reply to such contumacy was a series of blasts that continued in dreadful fray for a whole generation and then abated to a somewhat milder bombardment that goes on to this day. From 1,785 to 1,815 the English quarterly reviewers, then at the height of their power, denounced all Americanisms in a really frantic manner, the good along with the bad. When Thomas Jefferson, in 1,787, ventured to use the verb to belittle in his Notes on Virginia, he was dealt with as if he had committed some nefarious and ignoble act. "Freely, good Sir," roared the European Magazine and London Review, "will we forgive all your attacks, impotent as they are illiberal, upon our national character; but for the future-oh spare, we beseech you, our mother tongue!" All the other American writers of the ensuing quarter century were similarly belabored-among them, John Marshall, Noah Webster, Joel Barlow, and John Quincy Adams. Even Washington got a few licks-for using to derange. But the Yankee, between the two wars with England, was vastly less susceptible to English precept and example that he is today, and the thundering of the reviewers did not stay the hatching of Americanisms. On the contrary, it seems to have stimulated the process.
The term "linguistic policemen" (mentioned in the middle of the first paragraph) refers to ______.
选项
A、the policemen appointed by Queen Anne to keep the order of the colonies.
B、those British men who criticized the Americanism.
C、a group of followers after Francis Moor to visit America.
D、those people who came to head colleges and universities of Americ
答案
B
解析
从文中第一段可知,“语言警察”是指像Francis Moor和Rev. Hohn Witherspoon一样的对美式英语不满,并对其提出尖锐批评的人。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/0zHO777K
0
研究生英语学位课统考(GET)
相关试题推荐
Theimageofthevolunteersontelevisionadvertisingprovides______intopeople’sattitudestowardvolunteering.
For150yearsscientistshavetriedtodeterminethesolarconstant,theamountofsolarconstantenergythatreachestheEarth.
Joyandsadnessareexperiencedbypeopleinallculturesaroundtheworld,buthowcanwetellwhenotherpeoplearehappyord
Whyaresomanypeopleunhappyintheirjobs?Therearetwoprimaryreasons.First,somepeopleareconvincedthatearningaliv
Itisreportedthatmentalhealthhasbecomeatroublesomeissue.Thenumberofpeoplecommittingsuicideisontherise.Youar
Themultibillion-dollarinternationalpharmaceuticalindustryhasbeenaccusedofmanipulatingtheresultsofdrugtrialsforfi
Themultibillion-dollarinternationalpharmaceuticalindustryhasbeenaccusedofmanipulatingtheresultsofdrugtrialsforfi
Sexprejudicesarebasedonandjustifiedbytheideologythatbiologyisdestiny.Accordingtothisideology,basicbiological
Tousitseemssonaturaltoputupanumbrellatokeepthewateroffwhenitrains.Butactuallytheumbrellawasnotinvented
Hydrogenisthefundamentalelementoftheuniverse______itprovidesthebuildingblocksfromwhichtheotherelementsareprodu
随机试题
我国《收养法》规定,不满________周岁的未成年人可以被收养。()
重度子宫脱垂病人,手术后护理内容包括( )。
原方用法要求药后“多饮暖水”的是
患者男性,25岁,车祸大出血,需急诊手术,但无法取得患者意见又无家属或者关系人在场.医疗机构应如何处理
消化道分布有丰富的腺体,其中唾液腺主要包括
甲企业为增值税小规模纳税人,2016年11日购入一台生产用机器设备,取得普通发票60万元,税额为10.2万元,支付安装费,取得普通发票价款2万元,税O.22万元,计算甲该企业所得税计税基础的下列算式正确的是()。
组织策略是学习和记忆新信息的重要手段,下列活动中,学生运用组织策略的有()
材料(大意):2013年5月24日晚.网友“空游无依”发了一条微博,称他在埃及卢克索神庙的浮雕上看到有人用中文刻上了“丁锦昊到此一游”。“空游无依”表示.这是他在埃及感到最难过的一刻,简直无地自容。微博发出后,在社会上引起了轩然大波。至
由“十字军东征”这一事件评述东西方关系。
A、Onlyhumansrespondtoemotionsbysheddingtears.B、Onlyhumansshedtearstogetridofirritatingstuffintheireyes.C、On
最新回复
(
0
)