The anonymous author of The Pleasing Instructor: Or, Entertaining Moralist (1760: vii) discusses at length the education of females. He suggests that “Grammatical Learning is at present, perhaps, too much out of Fashion, especially among the Ladies”. He clearly favours Fisher’s anglicised grammatical approach as he blames many popular English grammars for being “so dependent upon the Latin, that they appear only Translations of them...” He therefore recommends a “Practical English Grammar”, mentioning specifically “FISHER’s English GRAMMAR” because it is “independent of the Latin, except in such Articles as are common to both”. The writer implies that grammars such as this may help women overcome the “obstacle” (viii) of understanding grammar. However, he is careful not to propose any radical reforms in female education, noting that he does not “mean to recommend READING at the Expence of SEWING”, which indicates that although women should learn grammar, fulfilling their household duties should be their main priority. Thus, despite his initial agreement with Fisher, this latter comment is somewhat contradictory to her views; Fisher was unsatisfied with the “polite education” women received, which covered geography, history, poetry or painting (Goldsmith, 1979: 316), and her willingness for further education, despite being married and running a family, is reflected in her knowledge of Latin, “a subject that was exclusively taught to boys in the 18th century” (Rodríguez-Gil, 2006: 25).
When considering Fisher’s willingness to break free from the confines that restricted women, it is somewhat surprising that she was the first grammarian to introduce the rule for the use of the sex-indefinite he, which was subsequently officially sanctioned in an Act of Parliament in 1850. Fisher stated, “The Masculine Person answers to the general Name, which comprehends both Male and Female; as, any Person who knows what he says. (Fisher, 1753: 106). This rule suppressed the indication of gender in pronouns, as “prior to the beginning of the prescriptive grammar movement in English, singular ‘they’ was both accepted and widespread” (Bodine, 1975: 129). This feature of her grammar was not based upon her contemporary language observations but instead, reflects a female grammarian taking a male perspective in a climate of the male-dominated standards of grammar.
Early grammarians felt that syntax was an insignificant aspect of English grammar, merely assuming that syntactical relations were expressed through inflection, as demonstrated by Bullokar’s (1586: 374) suggestion that “As English hath few and short rules for declining of words, so it hath few rules for joining words in sentence or in construction”. Even in the early eighteenth century, certain grammarians argued that the notion of an English syntax was impossible, “to make a Grammar in a Language whose declinable Parts of Speech are without suitable Variations, is, in my opinion, like exercising a Company of Faggot-Sticks, that have no Motion” (English Scholar Compleat, 1706: 26). However, between 1740 and 1770, 70% of grammars included sections on syntax (Michael, 1970: 468) and one of these grammars was Fisher’s. Her Syntax section contains a list of the “GENERAL RULES for ENGLISH CONCORD” (Fisher, 1753: 114), which propagates rules of agreement such as subject-verb, and also, various prescriptive and proscriptive rules. This treatment of syntax is similar to that of other contemporary grammarians as “the traditional conception of syntax as primarily the relations (agreement and government) between parts of speech” (Michael, 1970: 468) continued throughout the eighteenth century.
Her definition of syntax as “the right joining of Words in a Sentence, or Sentences together” (1754: 112) coincides with the eighteenth century notion of the “grammarian, not usage, [being] the official arbiter of language” (Rydén, 1984: 514) and implies a somewhat prescriptive attitude. However, Michael (1985: 466) points out that this definition was in fact modelled from earlier grammarians and was not her own, “The set definition of syntax remains virtually unchanged throughout the whole period: ‘the right placing or joining of Words together in a Sentence’ ”.
Despite this, her prescriptivism is more explicit in other areas of her treatment on syntax, namely her rejection of double negation, “A Negative in English, cannot be expressed by two Negatives; as it was not good for Nothing; I cannot eat none, &c. such Expressions are Solecisms, which, instead of Negatives, make Affirmatives…” (1753: 120). This is evidence of Baugh and Cable’s (2002: 263) suggestion that “the eighteenth century is responsible for the condemnation of the double negative” and is also reflected in Lowth’s similar proscription, “Two Negatives in English destroy one another, or are equivalent to an Affirmative” (1763: 97). It is also interesting to note that between the seventeenth and nineteenth century, solecism, which was initially solely restricted to linguistic contexts, could be used to chide a person’s general manners. Thus, solecism is defined as “A breach or violation of good manners or etiquette; a blunder or impropriety in manners, etc.” (OED, solecism, 2). This emphasises the importance of abiding to these linguistic rules that Fisher sets out in order to maintain an acceptable personal conduct.
Her treatment of syntax also contains a section about transpositions, or the “the Placing of Words… out of their natural Order, to render their Sound more harmonious and agreeable to the Ear” (Fisher, 1753: 123), as exemplified by preposition stranding, “The Preposition is frequently transposed; as, who do you dine with? for with whom do you dine?”. However, she cautions readers that “we must… follow the Use of the best Speakers and Writers. The clearest and best writers in Prose have the fewest Transpositions in their Discourses…” Thus, she regards such transpositions as a form of syntactic deviation, which reflects Yáñez-Bouza’s (2008: 294) suggestion that in eighteenth century grammars, “transposition is considered a departure from the natural order of ideas”.
Despite this, Fisher provides an exception to this rule, for the sake of euphony, “in Poetry, they are never used, but when the Nature and Harmony of the Verse require it” (op. cit.). This can be compared to earlier grammarians such as Greenwood, who also felt that transpositions were only acceptable “to render the Words more Harmonious and agreeable to the Ear” (Greenwood, 1711: 220). This importance of euphony in language is also highlighted by Fisher’s use of aesthetically related words and phrases such as “elegantly” (119), “beautiful” (121) and “in the manner most graceful to the Ear” (122).
To illustrate transposition, Fisher provides the long prepositional phrase from the opening five lines of Milton’s Paradise Lost, which eighteenth-century grammarians commonly objected to, despite it actually being “the English equivalent of what had once been a familiar Latin construction...” (Mitchell, 2001: 69). This practice became particularly popular with the publication of Buchanan’s The First Six Books of Paradise Lost rendered into Grammatical Construction (1773). Despite this rule of transposition apparently being overridden by euphony, Fisher nonetheless provides the more acceptable construction, “The Order is thus: Heavenly Muse, sing of Man’s first Disobedience...” (Fisher, 1753: 123), which would seem to imply that “poetry is an unnatural practice”, a view that many other eighteenth century grammarians hinted at (Michael, 1970: 472).
At the end of this Syntax section, Fisher, for the first time (van Ostade, 2000), confronts readers with ‘exercises of false English’, influenced by earlier, similar exercises where faulty Latin had to be corrected, such as Bailey’s English and Latin Exercises (1706). She uses this feature as a selling point for her grammar, stating, “As this contains a larger Syntax, with Exercises of Bad English, and some other Praxises and Peculiarities entirely new ... never any Thing of the same Nature appearing in an English Grammar before, I run the Risk of Singularity” (1789: vi). However, Fisher also inserts a few correct constructions into these examples of “false English”, “lest the Learner, expecting them always wrong, should alter them by guess” (1789: 121). According to van Ostade (2000), this “suggests experience in teaching and a clear pedagogical concern in her grammar”, which was perhaps a response to the “increasing responsibility of women for their children’s elementary education” (Percy, 1994: 126). Fisher’s pedagogical concern clearly represents an advancement in the practicality of grammars, when compared to those of Lowth (1762), Priestley (1761) and Ussher (1785), which did not discuss teaching techniques, as “the only important thing was the content, not the form” (Rodriguez-Gil, 2006: 20).
Despite this, children had a tendency to merely memorise lists of rules and apply them to the examples in isolation, and Mitchell (2001: 104) therefore suggests that exercises such as this “did little to enhance [children’s] writing”. The exercises were also criticised by Daniel Fenning (1771: vi), who argues that “They are more likely to perplex a young Scholar, and to confirm an old one in error, than to direct the judgment of the one, or correct the bad habit of the other”. Instead, in what appears to be an “early form of peer editing” (Mitchell, 2001: 105), he recommends students writing letters to the schoolmaster or to each other, where they will “frequently err against every rule of syntax”, as from his experience, “a Child will attend more carefully to the correction of an error made by himself, than to the correction of one made by another” (vii).
Nonetheless, Fisher’s exercises made a significant impact on subsequent grammars, as demonstrated by Murray, who suggested that “a proper selection of faulty composition is more instructive to the young grammarian, than any rules and examples of propriety that can be given” (1795: iv). The exercises were included in about eighty eighteenth and nineteenth century English grammars (Michael 1987: 325–327) and even in separate textbooks, such as Murray’s English Exercises (1797). This was supplemented by Key to the Exercises (1797), which aimed to guide readers through the examples.
In the Orthography section, Fisher provides a list of how the letters of the alphabet are pronounced. She distinguishes between vowels and consonants, and more specifically, between long and short vowels, as well as diphthongs. While Fisher introduced various innovations in other sections of her grammar, her treatment of orthography is “traditional” among English grammarians, according to Michael (1970: 184), who states that “Orthography meant the study of letters of the alphabet, which were enumerated, and classified as consonants, vowels and diphthongs... The structure of a word was therefore shown by the syllables into which it could be divided.” This latter remark is demonstrated by her conception of spelling as the “DIVISION of WORDS into SYLLABLES” (Fisher, 1753: 29), which is not dissimilar to Douglas’ (c. 1720) suggestion that “To Spell is to Name all the letters of a Word, divide them into distinct Syllables, and then join them together in order to read or Pronounce them aright” (cited in Michael, ibid). Thus, Fisher appears to continue this English orthographic tradition with few additions or variations.
However, the various similarities between features in this section and Daniel Fisher’s The Child’s Christian Education (1743) leads Rodríguez-Gil (2008) to suspect that Daniel Fisher may have acted as a co-author in A New Grammar. The spelling rules in the two grammars, she suggests, “run almost in parallel, even occurring in the same order, although with some more or less trivial changes” (159). For example, Daniel Fisher’s Rule I is “If two Vowels come together, not making a Diphthong, they must be divided, as Li-ar, Ru-in” (Daniel Fisher, 1759: 101), which is identical to Ann Fisher’s Rule I, with the minor exception of her replacement of “Li-ar” with “pi-ous” (Ann Fisher, 1750: 33). Rodríguez-Gil (2008: 161) admits however, that it was not uncommon for the same or similar rules to appear in contemporary grammars or spelling books and she is therefore unable to provide sufficient textual evidence that Daniel Fisher was the co-author.
Despite this, Rodríguez-Gil presents circumstantial evidence that supports Daniel Fisher being somehow connected with A New Grammar. The second edition (1750) states that it was written by the “AUTHOR of THE CHILD’S CHRISTIAN EDUCATION, and others”, and Daniel Fisher was in fact, the author of this work. Moreover, the third edition (1751) was written by “D. FISHER, and others”. Rodríguez-Gil (2008: 150) dismisses the suggestion that Ann Fisher used ‘Daniel Fisher’ as a pseudonym as Daniel Fisher was already a popular contemporary author and the use of his name without his permission would cause legal problems.
Furthermore, Isaac Thompson published a number of books by both Ann and Daniel Fisher. Based on this, Rodríguez-Gil suggests that this common acquaintance “supports the possibility that Ann Fisher and Daniel Fisher knew each other” (153). This indicates that as Ann Fisher was an unfamiliar author when A New Grammar was first published, having not produced anything before this, and due to her disadvantage as a female, it is possible that she presented the book as being co-written with Daniel Fisher in order to increase its chance of success. Consequently, there is convincing evidence that Daniel Fisher contributed, at least in some ways, to A New Grammar, and as Rodríguez-Gil (2008: 175) suggests, he seems to have “introduced Ann Fisher... into the male-dominated world of scholars, thus acting as her patron”.
A New Grammar presents a descriptive account of features of the English language, based on Fisher’s linguistic observations. She is clearly a ‘reformer’ grammarian, who celebrates the uniqueness of English, embracing its peculiarities and outwardly rejecting the traditional Latin model of English grammar. Her career as a teacher shines through with her emphasis on a ‘practical’ grammar, which revolutionary takes into consideration pedagogical methods. Although Fisher is often overshadowed in modern linguistic studies by grammarians such as Lowth and Murray, the innovations she brought to the grammatical tradition cannot be overlooked.
Bibliography
Baugh, A. and Cable, T. (2002), A History of the English Language. London: Routledge.
Bodine, A. (1975), “Androcentrism in prescriptive grammar: singular ‘they’, sex-indefinite ‘he’, and ‘he or she’ ”. Language in Society 4: 129-46.
Goldsmith, L. (1979), “Ambivalence towards women’s education in the eighteenth century: the thoughts of Vicesimus Knox II”. Paedagogia-Historica 19: 315-27.
Michael, I. (1970), English Grammatical Categories and the Tradition to 1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Michael, I. (1985), English Grammatical Categories and the Tradition to 1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Michael, Ian. 1987. The Teaching of English from the Sixteenth Century to 1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mitchell, L. (2001), Grammar Wars. Hampshire: Ashgate.
Moessner, L. (2000), “Grammatical description and language use in the seventeenth century”. In Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero et al. (eds.), Generative Theory and Corpus Studies: A Dialogue from 10 ICEHL. Berlin/New York, Mouton de Gruyter: 395-416.
Myer, A. (1997), Myer’s Literary Guide, the North East. Manchester: Carcanet Press.
Percy, Carol. 1994. “Paradigms for their Sex? Women’s grammar in late eighteenth-century England”. Histoire Epistemologie Langage 16:2. 121–141.
Rodríguez-Gil, M. (2003), “Ann Fisher, descriptive or prescriptive grammarian?”. Linguistica e Filologia 17: 183-203.
Rodríguez-Gil, M. (2006), “Deconstructing Female Conventions: Ann Fisher
(1719–1778).” Historiographia Linguistica 33.1: 11–38.
Rodríguez-Gil, M. (2008), “Ann Fischer's A New Grammar, or was it Daniel Fisher's work?” In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (ed.), Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar-Writing in Eighteenth-Century England. Berlin/New York, Mouton de Gruyter: 149-77.
Rydén, M. (1984), “The study of eighteenth century syntax”. In Jacek Fisiak (ed.), Studies and Monographs 23: Historical Syntax. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter: 509-21.
Yáñez-Bouza, N. (2008), “Preposition stranding in the eighteenth century: Something to talk about”. In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (ed.), Grammars, Grammarians and Grammar-Writing in Eighteenth-Century England. Berlin/New York, Mouton de Gruyter: 278-308.
Grammars Consulted
Anon. (1706), English Scholar Compleat. London: printed by W. O. and sold by Benjamin Bragg.
Anon. (1760), The Pleasing Instructor: Or, Entertaining Moralist. Newcastle upon Tyne: printed for Thomas Slack.
Bullokar, W. (1586), William Bullokar’s Pamphlet for Grammar. London: printed by Edmund Bollifant.
Fenning, D. (1771). A New Grammar of the English Tongue. London: printed for S.
Crowder.
Fisher, A. (1750), A New Grammar. Newcastle upon Tyne: printed for I. Thompson and Co. by J. Gooding.
Fisher, A. (1751), A New Grammar. Newcastle upon Tyne.
Fisher, A. (1753), A New Grammar. London.
Fisher, A. (1754), A New Grammar. Newcastle upon Tyne: I. Thompson.
Fisher, A. (1789), A Practical New Grammar. Newcastle : printed for S. Hodgson, successor to Mr. T. Slack.
Fisher, D. (1759), The child’s Christian education. London : printed and sold by B. Dod.
Greenwood, J. (1711), An essay towards a practical English grammar. London : printed by R. Tookey, and are sold by Samuel Keeble, John Lawrence, Jonah Bowyer, R. and I. Bonwick, and Rob. Halsey.
Johnson, S. (1775), A Dictionary of the English Language vol. 1. Dublin : printed for Thomas Ewing, 1775.
Lowth, R. (1763), A short introduction to English grammar. Dublin : printed by H. Saunders.
Murray, L. (1795), English Grammar. York : printed and sold by Wilson, Spence, and Mawman.
Priestley, J. (1761), The rudiments of English grammar. London : printed for R. Griffiths.
Websites
Oxford English Dictionary Online
Accessed on 20th April 2009.
van Ostade, I. (2000), “Female grammarians of the eighteenth century”. Historical Sociolinguistics and Sociohistorical Linguistics website:
Accessed on 28th April 2009.