Introduction

There are, however, numerous problems with this view. An obvious one is that the standard changes. If the standard never changed, it would still be standard to say Our father, which art in heaven as in the King James version of the Bible. Nowadays, except in direct quotation, we would have to say Our father, who is in heaven. The seventh edition of The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1982) suggests that It was different than I had expected is not part of the standard, the eighth edition (1990) suggests that it is. We presumably do not wish to suggest that a lot of people who previously spoke standard English suddenly started speaking nonstandard English in 1990 because they still said It was different from what I had expected. Nor would we wish to suggest that a lot of people who spoke non-standard English in 1982 started speaking standard English in 1990 for that reason. There has to be a certain amount of room for variation within a standard.