Frontmatter -- Contents -- Sorting out the variants: Standardization and social factors in the English language 1600-1800 -- The notion of "standard language" and its applicability to the study of Early Modern English pronunciation -- "Politeness" as linguistic ideology in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England -- Language standardization in eighteenth-century Scotland -- Prestige norms in stage plays, 1600-1800 -- Proliferation and option-cutting: The strong verb in the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries -- Standardization and the English irregular verbs -- The differentiation of statives and perfects in early modern English: The development of the conclusive perfect -- Its strength and the beauty of it: The standardization of the third person neuter possessive in Early Modern English -- Standard and non-standard pronominal usage in English, with special reference to the eighteenth century -- The critic and the grammarians: Joseph Addison and the prescriptivists -- The effect of exposure to standard English: The language of William Clift -- Index