The American concern for prescriptive correctness in linguistic behavior, which derives from eighteenth centry British notions, met with considerable and significant challenge by the contrary descriptive notion in the first half of the nineteenth century. The energy of this challenge waned by mid-century and the prescriptive drive for linguistic…

This study compared the vocabulary of the period from 1943 to 1945 to the vocabulary of 1975. In addition to a direct comparison of word use, an indirect comparison was made using Thorndike's word list in the "Teacher's Word Book" (1931). The 1975 vocabulary, based on frequency of word appearance, was derived from 93 speeches made by students in…

The test performance of 120 Anglo, black, and Chicano third- and fifth-grade children is used to demonstrate the similarities between the processes of diachronic and ontogenetic language change. The instrument used measured the range of knowledge of several grammatical structures. Analysis and interpretation of results suggested the gradual…