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30.08.2020 03:20 •  Английский язык

найти. Найдите в тексте предложения с Passive Voice, выпишите их, подчеркнув компоненты Passive. The American Revolution of the British colonies who declared themselves independent marked the turning point in the making of new, American kind of English. The men who gathered in Philadelphia to sign the Declaration of Independence understood the power of language to shape national consciousness. In 1782, the citizens of the new Republic were proudly christened "Americans", and in 1802, the United States Congress recorded the first use of the phrase "the American language".

Thomas Jefferson, who at the age of thirty-three was chiefly responsible for drafting the Declaration of Independence, was fascinated by new words. Not surprisingly for a man who designed his own house, his own writing desk and his own tele¬scope. He liked to invent words. He also gave his approval to the new currency terms like "cent" and "dollar".

Benjamin Franklin was a printer who set up shop in Philadel¬phia at the age of seventeen. He took a tireless interest in the world around him — he organized the first fire brigade, he founded the first free public library, he was among the first to wear spectacles. At heart a printer, he got interested in chaotic spelling conventions of the English language and, typi¬cally enough, proposed its reform. In 1768, he published a paper entitled "A Scheme for a New Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling". His plan was not adopted, but it was to have a pro¬found influence on America's great lexicographer, Noah Webster. Franklin was the godfather of such spelling differences as "honor" for British "honour", "theater" for "theatre", etc.

For Jefferson, Franklin, John Adams, and the other leaders of the American Revolution, American English was the proud badge of independence, a language with a future. They were sure that English in America should be "improved and perfected”. But how?

The extent to which the English language became a political issue is illustrated by a curious procession that took place through the streets of New York on July 23, 1788. The occasion was the ratification of the new American Constitution. The dem¬onstrators included all classes, professional men, trades people and laborers. In the procession an association of young men, called the Philological Society, carried through the streets a book inscribed "Federal Language". It emphasized the strong desire of many Americans to break with British Eng¬lish and its eighteenth-century classical traditions.

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