vocabulary and
construction. These are shown most strikingly in some of the ballads
of that region which have been collected by William Aspinwall Bradley,
and by Howard Brockway. Rural schools and the breakdown of complete
isolation will probably in time eliminate this divergence.]

The most important stabilizing influence of print, however,
is its fixation of meanings. It makes possible their maintenance
uncorrupted and unmodified over wide stretches in
which there are phonetic variations. These variant articulations
in different parts of a large country where the same language
is spoken, would, if unchecked, eventually modify the
sense of words. Print largely prevents this from happening.
One can read newspapers published in Maine, California,
Virginia, and Iowa, without noticing any significant, or, in
many cases, even slight differences in vocabulary or construction.
There are, of course, local idioms, but these persist in
conversation, rather than in print, save where they are caught
up and exploited for literary purposes by a Bret Harte, a
Mark Twain, or an O. Henry.

COUNTER-TENDENCIES TOWARD DIFFERENTIATION. While the
_standard_ language does become fixed and stable, there are,
in the daily life of different social groups, varying actual
languages. Every class, or profession, every social group,
whether of interest, or occupation, has its slight individuality
in articulation or vocabulary. We still observe that members
of a family talk alike; sometimes households have literally
their own household words. And on different economic
and social levels, in different sports, intellectual, professional,
and business pursuits, we notice slightly different "actual"
languages. These partly overlap. The society lady, the
business man, the musician, the professor of literature, the
mechanic, have specializations of vocabulary and construction,
but there is, for each of them, a great common linguistic
area. Every individual's speech is a resultant of the various
groups with whom he associates. He is affected in his speech
habits most predominantly, of course, by his most regular
associates, professional and social. In consequence we still
mark out a man, as much as anything, by the kind of language
he speaks. The mechanic and the man of letters are
not likely to be mistaken for each other, if overheard in a
street car. Many literary and dramatic characters are memorable
for their speech habits. Such types are successf