01355383 Varieties of English and Cultures of English Native Speakers 07 | Page 6

Seeing that there were many
variations of written and spoken
English, linguistic scholars tried to
set out the rules for Standard
English.
For example, a British essayist and
satirist, Jonathan Swift, was one
among the prescriptivists, who
wanted to fix the English language.
He wrote Proposal for Correcting,
Improving, and Ascertaining the
English Tongue (1712), proposing
the idea of founding the English
Aanguage academy to promote the
correct language use.