ABSTRACT
The Common Language is often in a marked degree a class-language, an upper-class language. This follows naturally from social conditions. The upper class travels more and mixes more with people of similar standing from other parts of the country. Consider the case of well-to-do English country-gentlemen, who even centuries ago went regularly once a year to London for 'the season' and 'high society', and who when they were at home on their estates were constantly receiving visits from friends and relations from other parts of the country. In either place social intercourse contributed to the disappearence of dialect. Add to this the effect of their boys being educated, not in day schools, but in the great 'public-schools' - boarding-schools for wellto-do boys from all parts. Accordingly Wyld and others have described Standard English now as 'class-dialect, independent of locality' and now as the natural speech of people who send their sons to 'public schools" that is, as 'the public school dialect'.
