In:Transatlantic Perspectives on Late Modern English
Edited by Marina Dossena
[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 4] 2015
► pp. 73–97
Transatlantic perspectives on late nineteenth-century English usage
Alford (1864) compared to White (1871)
Published online: 12 February 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.4.04bus
https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.4.04bus
The present contribution investigates two handbooks on English usage dating from the late nineteenth century, one British (i.e. Alford’s The Queen’s English, of 1864) and the other American (i.e. White’s Words and their Uses, of 1871). Both manuals were important and successful in their time and even after, and they can be considered as early specimens of prescriptive guides on English usage on both sides of the Atlantic. The objective of the comparison is to find out whether they concentrate on the same items of disputed usage or whether British and American English had become so much separated at that point in time that both usage guides treat different items or come to different conclusions on the same items. Furthermore, by adopting a transatlantic perspective it will be worked out whether the two authors share the same ideologies concerning the standard language or not.
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Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Dossena, Marina
2022. “Gems of elocution and humour”. In Earlier North American Englishes [Varieties of English Around the World, G66], ► pp. 183 ff.
Busse, Ulrich
2020. “Divided by a common language”?. In Late Modern English [Studies in Language Companion Series, 214], ► pp. 185 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 7 march 2026. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.