Age of Authority II (1650-1800)



  1. British Expansion
    1. Britain's colonial territories included America, India (c. 1600), Australia (1768).
        1. largest rival for colonial expansion was France
        2. Australia used for penal colony after 1787
    2. As always, new contacts and new experiences mean new changes for language, especially in vocabulary. Some examples follow:
      1. Native American: caribou, hickory, hominy, moccasin, moose, opossum, papoose, raccoon, skunk, squaw, terrapin, toboggan, tomahawk, totem, wampum, wigwam.
      2. Spanish American: chili, chocolate, coyote, tomato, barbecue, cannibal, canoe, hammock, hurricane, maize, potato, tobacco, cayenne, petunia, poncho, tapioca.
      3. India: bandanna, bangle, bengal, bungalow, calico, cashmere, china, chintz, curry, juggernaut, jungle, jute, loot, thug, veranda, gingham, indigo, mango, seersucker.
      4. Africa (& Dutch Africans): banana, boorish, chimpanzee, gorilla, guinea, gumbo, voodoo, zebra.
      5. Australia: boomerang, kangaroo, coeey, wombat


  2. Some Verb Changes
    1. Emphatic Forms
      1. Constructed with "do" auxiliary
        1. I did see a flying saucer
      2. "do" also used in negative and interrogative sentences.
        1. You did not see a flying saucer.
        2. Did you see a flying saucer?
    2. Progressive Verb Forms
      1. Few examples prior to 18th c.
        1. often from Latin translations; sometimes Chaucer uses progressive but always with adverb like "always" or "all the day" (syngynge he was, or floytynge, al the day)
      2. Apparently grew from use of participle as a noun. e.g., He burst out on laughing He burst out a-laughing He burst out laughing.
      3. The progressive passive in particular was not universally accepted: "an outrage upon English idiom, to be detested, abhorred, execrated ," said one American grammarian in 1837. In 1859, another wrote, "the phrase 'the house is being built' for 'the house is building,' is an awkward neologism ."


  3. Changes in Style