# Growth of English Textbooks through the centuries



## Ent (Nov 4, 2022)

Here's just a little information for you, though you've probably all got it committed to memory already.

A brief but interesting historical picture to me, as I probe the development of the Early, Middle, Early-Modern and Modern English eras to better see what Tolkien worked with and through just in our own languages.



The growth in number of textbooks speaks much about many things.


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## Elthir (Nov 5, 2022)

Thanks *The Ent*! Interesting!

Books do grow if you treat them right!


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## Ent (Nov 5, 2022)

Indeed. They grow of themselves. They grow "on one". They grow in importance. They grow old. They grow mold. They grow... oh skip it..!

And if the one you pictured above continues its growth a bit, it will soon be big enough even for an Ent to use.


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## Elthir (Nov 5, 2022)

The Ent said:


> Indeed. They grow of themselves. They grow "on one". They grow in importance. They grow old. They grow mold. They grow... oh skip it..!



Oh no, please do "grow" on!

Cough._ Sorry_. Some puns are just beggin' for it.


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## Olorgando (Nov 5, 2022)

Textbooks are one thing. Dictionaries (and grammars, and ...) are a somewhat newer development, at least as far as I can tell about my two native languages Ehglish and German.
And I have the feeling that languages have a development similar to JRRT's legendarium.
There are the books (this would be the dictionaries and their precursors).
But daily usage is consistently sloppy and "non-canonical", and never mind dialects.
So languages proceed to what one might call the "PJ's LoTR films" stage; then the "PJ's TH films" stage; then the "RoP" stage ...
I mean, there's a reason that only a handful of university specialists are now able to read "Beowulf" in the original. Or in German the "Nibelungenlied" from ca. 1200. Or back to English Geoffrey Chaucer's stuff (14th century). Even Elizabethan English (Shakespeare & Co.) or the slightly earlier German writings of Martin Luther & Co, 16th century. Heck, I have an English edition of Adam Smith's 1776 "The Wealth of Nations", and *that* is heavy going compared to contemporary stuff (though decidedly more recent authors on economics have been less readable, to do mostly with contorted thinking).

I've noticed this downwards slide towards "RoP" depths in my two native languages for perhaps half a century now.
Thing is, my parents and their generation probably, very likely, thought the same about the usage of "my" generation.
Dito my grandparents about the usage by my parents; my great-grandparents about ... I think you catch my drift.

And at least as far as languages go, what on generation looks (and shudders) at as a "RoP" degeneration becomes "canon" perhaps two generations later or so. The dictionaries slow this a bit by taking their time in releasing supplements with neologisms, but casual daily usage forges ahead with sloppy, so to speak "Hobbitic" deformation.


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## Ent (Nov 5, 2022)

Sir Olorgando, I begin to suspect that you, too, have more than a passing interest in languages - their history and development - in all their glory and amusements. 
Indeed Dictionaries, Usage Dictionaries, Grammars, Writing and Style treatises, Etymological Dictionaries, Philological Studies, etc. all have their very own place, don't then. And none are "textbooks", So the chart just serves to demonstrate the growing interest in language from one perspective, though it no doubt has connectors to the others as well in their growth.

Then of course there's the argument over 'pedantic retention of historical use' vs. 'fluid acceptance, incorporation and correct use of evolution' within language. (I've recently spotted another book on the 'evolution is good' theory I may snag for a read.)

One thing is sure. Language is not static anywhere. It was for this reason I left my German behind years ago to try to focus more on my own - an unfortunate choice perhaps in the long run, but there just wasn't time to progress with it. Thus today my German is furchtbar (terrible). 

Anyway, one of the reasons I'm pressing into these things at this late stage of my life is to keep my brain active..! I'm 'getting to that point' you know, where - well - there are considerations consistent with the 'season of life' in which I find myself. 

And of course, it doesn't hurt as I help with editing of some works for other people either. 
(Oh yes, let's not forget all the tomes on 'how to write' and 'how to edit' as well,)


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