SAXONISM
Currently, Saxonism occurs directly as a literary conceit and indirectly in campaigns for simpler English. In humorous writing, vernacular alternatives to established Romance words are coined and used for effect. In the magazine Punch in 1966, to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, the humorist Paul Jennings wrote ‘anent the ninehundredth yearday of the Clash of Hastings’, and rendered Hamlet's most famous soliloquy into ‘Anglish’, beginning with:To be, or not to be: that is the ask-thing:
Is't higher-thinking in the brain to bear
The slings and arrows of outrageous dooming
Or take up weapons 'gainst a sea of bothers
And by againstwork end them?
In the word list of BASIC ENGLISH, C. K. Ogden showed a marked preference for vernacular over Romance and classical words. Campaigners for PLAIN ENGLISH often urge people to avoid polysyllables and keep to everyday language, implicitly proposing a kind of Saxonism. In such movements, however, the main criterion is not linguistic pedigree but ease of communication.
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