And spelling. I read a lot of old documents and even 150 years ago in official papers, spelling and grammar are very creative and have wide variability. One ancestor's surname is spelled four different ways in one deed and he signed it with a fifth version.
Webster’s New International Dictionary (second edition) published in 1934 is considered the standard for defining how words are spelled and used. The philosophy when it was written was that the dictionary should be the reference for the "proper" way. On the other hand, the Third Edition, published in 1961 was a complete change in philosophy:
Permissiveness
In the early 1960s, Webster's Third came under attack for its "permissiveness" and its failure to tell people what proper English was. It was the opening shot in the culture wars, as conservatives detected yet another symbol of the permissiveness of society as a whole and the decline of authority, as represented by the Second Edition.[25] As historian Herbert Morton explained, "Webster's Second was more than respected. It was accepted as the ultimate authority on meaning and usage and its preeminence was virtually unchallenged in the United States. It did not provoke controversies, it settled them." Critics charged that the [Webster's Third] dictionary was reluctant to defend standard English, for example entirely eliminating the labels "colloquial", "correct", "incorrect", "proper", "improper", "erroneous", "humorous", "jocular", "poetic", and "contemptuous", among others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster%27s_Dictionary#Webster.27s_Third_New_International_Dictionary_.281961.29
When I was in library science school in the 1970s it was still controversial. Libraries were encouraged to have both editions available for reference and not just get the newest edition. I thought then as I do now, that the scholars who edited the Third Edition were acknowledging that "proper" language cannot remain static and that the evolution of language should be accepted.
I'm glad to see the internet is creating it's own language evolution. A static language is a dead language and the beauty of English in particular is its ability to adapt to new environments.
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