• On of the biggest trends in the development of English over the last one hundred years or so has been the demand for plain and unaffected diction

• It goes hand in hand with condemnation of the idle taste for “words of learned length and thundering sound”

• From the end of the nineteenth century such demands have come to represent significant linguistic reflexes of democratisation of the British society

• They appear to be part of a general movement away from old class constraints and social rigidities

• They account for the development of the “informal” trend in the language

• The 1926 General Strike and the rise of democratic socialism enabled the Labour Party to replace the Liberals in competing with Conservatives as the alternative party of government 

• A democratisation of British society gained momentum

• In the post-war era it has been accompanied by a dramatic rise in the general standard of living

• The mass of people – working-class and lower-middle-class – have become much more self-confident (and hence more linguistically assertive)

• At the same time they are more highly valued by the powerful and are wooed by commerce and advertisers

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