Eric Voegelin's "discovery" of the social stratification of English usage.

Source: Ellis Sandoz's The Voegelinian Revolution, page 76.

What follows is in Voegelin's own words, regarding an experience he had at Lousiana State University during WW II.

Voegelin himself was trying to acquire an adequate use of English himself.

"The nature of my problem can be gathered from a conversation with Cleanth Brooks.

"Once, when crossing the campus, I met him, deep in sorrow and thought, and asked him what worried him.

"He told me he had to prepare a chapter on typical mistakes for a textbook on English style which he had to reedit together with Robert Penn Warren, and that it was quite a chore to find typical mistakes.

"I was a bit surprised and innocently told him, Well, that is very simple to find typical mistakes. Just take any education textbook and you will find half a dozen on every page.

"He then explained to me that he could not use this method because educationists were far below the level of average literacy, their mistakes could not be considered to be typical for an average English - speaking person."

Ha, ha, ha!