Speaking Properly Notes

Questions

1. What was Samuel Johnson often known as?

2. What did Samuel Johnson do?

3. Who wrote Life of Samuel Johnson?

4. What was Life of Samuel Johnson?

5. How long did Johnson spend writing his dictionary?

6. Why do people read his dictionary today?

7. What did Johnson think about fixing English for all time?

8. What did Robert Lowth do?

9. What can you say about Lowth’s rules?

10. What did William Cobbett say about language?

11. Why was William Cobbett famous?

12. What did Thomas Sheridan teach?

13. Which countries did Thomas Sheridan tour?

14. Whom did many Scottish people want to use as a model of English?

15. Why was Thomas Paine famous?

16. How did Paine write?

17. What did Wordsworth think about poetic language?

18. Who was the funny character in The Rivals?

20. Why was she funny?

21. Who wrote The Rivals? Whose son was he?

22. What were many women reading in the late eighteenth century?

23. When did Jane Austen’s novel appear?

24. What kind of words often appeared in Jane Austen’s novels?

25. When were the Bronte sisters born?