ABSTRACT
Bismarck said "the most significant event of the nineteenth century was the acceptance of English as the language of North America." 1 By 1920 English was spoken by 300 million people and was the language of government of 500 million. It had penetrated into more areas of the globe than any other language in history. It was becoming the medium of science and world business and was widely disseminated by radio, motion pictures, advertising, telecommunications, and aviation. Many noticed the trend. Ogden hoped to turn it to practical, educational, and internationaF ends. Basic English, his exclusive invention and intellectual property, was born in the idealism of the post-World War I period with its hopes for communication among peoples and world organizations. It was a simplified, all-purpose, idiomatic version of the most universal language and was designed to give foreigners and children quick access to everything touched by English. But it also gave weight to charges of British linguistic imperialism that went back at least to the 189os. Equally disturbing, Basic seemed to offer an ideal of technological efficiency that reduces language from a complex instrument of intellectual analysis into a collection of purely functional or operational phrases. For forty years Richards gave himself to improving the design and furthering the goals of Basic English and successive designs in China and America. What was in that design and those goals that attracted him so long and so deeply?
