like the rules that tell you that you can’t touch the ball with
your hands when you’re playing soccer, or that you have to
drive on the right or the left side of the road. Those rules
were made by people. Someone had to decide the rules !rst,
and now people are required to follow them. If someone
breaks a rule, there are negative consequences.
Rules in language don’t work that way. They were not
arti!cially created for people to follow; instead, they’re a
description or summary of what people already do naturally
when they speak. Language rules exist primarily in speakers’
minds; the speakers are usually not even aware of them.
Linguists and teachers try to discover the rules, not to create
them. They observe how people talk and make
generalizations about what they hear. The rules don’t tell
what a language should be like; they’re a summary of what it
is like. (In other words, they’re descriptive rules, not
prescriptive rules.)
There are many, many varieties of English, and not all
speakers sound the same way. Because of this, we shouldn’t
be surprised if we !nd that some speakers aren’t following
the rules that we’ve read in a textbook—this one or any
other. This is pretty normal.
Language is messy
Finally, here’s a basic truth to remember: Language is like a
living thing—messy, inconsistent, and constantly changing.
In fact, it is often said that the only thing that’s constant in
language is the fact that it’s always changing. New words are
invented, grammar rules change gradually, and sounds come
and go. If we listen to what English sounded like hundreds of
years ago, it’s almost impossible to understand—it’s changed
that much.In the same way, the sound system of English is changing
even now. We can’t always be sure what direction the change
will take or what the accepted forms will be like in the
future. We just have to stay calm and accept the fact that
change is inevitable.When we see diagrams, rules, and lists describing a language,
they look neat and exact, but the reality is that sounds and
other aspects of language vary a lot from speaker to speaker,26This is what Old English sounded like. It’s part of a riddle from the
Book of Exeter, a collection of poems and other writings from over
1,000 years ago. You can hear this recording by a modern reader
on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI3H9qAgdxk