Ann Fisher: Descriptive or prescriptive grammarian?

Abstract

The dichotomy of prescriptive vs. descriptive grammar has been long applied to eighteenth-century English grammars. In fact, only a few grammars are considered descriptive, among which Priestley’s is the most representative. Some modern scholars have criticized eighteenth-century English prescriptive grammars, mainly because they did not show contemporary language use, but conveyed a mixture of seventeenth-century English and the authors’ own interpretation of the language. Their main task was to impose language rules, even inventing them if necessary. However, doubts have recently been raised on the inflexibility of this prescriptive/descriptive dichotomy. For instance, Vorlat (1998: 285-286) proposes three categories for sixteenth- and seventeenth-century grammars that may well apply to eighteenth-century grammars: (i) descriptive registration of language, (ii) normative grammar, and (iii) prescriptive grammar. Tieken-Boon van Ostade (2000b) has also shown that Lowth’s text, practically an emblem of prescriptive grammar, also includes contemporary English usage. It is thus not unreasonable to hypothesize a continuum along which eighteenth-century grammars move, being more or less descriptive or prescriptive, a hybrid of both tendencies. The aim of this study is to exemplify this continuum through the analysis of Ann Fisher’s A New Grammar, with Exercises of bad English (1754).