Real English - Grammar of English Dialects in the British Isles (Real Language Series) James Mirloy, Lesley Mirloy

"It is no longer considered to be sufficient for overseas students to learn the grammar of one highly standardized variety of English"

"It is also true that many people believe that there is only one form of ‘correct’ English, and that deviations from this are a result of ignorance or carelessness."

"all varieties of all languages have their own ‘grammars’, even if these grammars sometimes differ from standardized grammars."

"The regional dialects are not careless deviations from a standardized norm: they have their own complex histories. There is a close relationship, however, between written English and what we have come to regard as standard English. As a consequence of this, some commentators have believed that non-standard speakers will require more help in achieving literacy than standard speakers will."

"many people feel a compulsion to accept only one out of two or more variants as the ‘correct’ form (e.g. different from as against different to), even when there is no difference in meaning between the forms".

"It is important to understand that, although the standard variety has achieved social prestige and importance, its linguistic forms are not necessarily better or more discriminating than those of other dialects."

"It is the grammar of written English rather than that of spoken English that has been most extensively codified."

"written English makes heavy use of structures that are rare in speech. These include: a relatively high proportion of complex sentences with heavy subordinate clause structures; the use of many subordinating conjunctions and adverbials to mark relations between clauses and sentences"

"The eighteenth–century codification of English was carried out on the written language and not the spoken. It seems to be because of this that some people believe spoken language to be simply ‘ungrammatical’:"


"A similar example, this time from syntax, is multiple negation, as in she never said nothing. Prescriptive grammarians have been successful in outlawing this pattern of negation from standard English, but it was common in Chaucer's time, used by Shakespeare, and continues to be used by large numbers of native speakers of English today."

Real English Grammar of English Dialects in the British Isles (Real Language Series) James Mirloy, Lesley Mirloy