"While eighteenth-century efforts to standardize the English language have long been studied--from Samuel Johnson's 'Dictionary' to grammar and elocution books of the period--less well-known are the era's popular collections of odd slang, criminal argots, provincial dialects, and nautical jargon. 'Strange Vernaculars' delves into how these published works presented the supposed lexicons of the 'common people' and traces the ways that these languages, once shunned and associated with outsiders, became objects of fascination in printed glossaries--from 'The New Canting Dictionary' to Francis Grose's 'Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'--and in novels, poems, and songs, including works by Daniel Defoe, John Gay, Samuel Richardson, Robert Burns, and others"--Front jacket flap.

The eighteenth century was a key period in the development of the English language, in which the modern standard emerged and many dictionaries and grammars first appeared. This book is divided into thematic sections which deal with issues central to English in the eighteenth century. These include linguistic ideology and the grammatical tradition, the contribution of women to the writing of grammars, the interactions of writers at this time and how politeness was encoded in language, including that on a regional level. The contributions also discuss how language was seen and discussed in public and how grammarians, lexicographers, journalists, pamphleteers and publishers judged on-going change. The novel insights offered in this book extend our knowledge of the English language at the onset of the modern period.