that our complaints are nothing new - 'Twas ever Thus

[luanabanana]

"THE TOTAL NEGLECT OF THE ART OF SPEAKING"

In the preface to the 1780 book A General Dictionary of the English Language, Thomas Sheridan wrote:

The total neglect of this art [speaking] has been productive of the worst consequences...in the conduct of all affairs ecclesiastical and civil, in church, in parliament, courts of justice...the wretched state of elocution is apparent to persons of any discernment and taste… if something is not done to stop this growing evil …English is likely to become a mere jargon, which every one may pronounce as he pleases.

Saw a great one by a ?Greek philosopher about "the children of today" and it was something like BC2000!

From an 1880's American newspaper article:

"It is remarkable how much attention the stage and things pertaining to it are receiving nowadays from the magazines...it has become a topic of conversation among all classes, furnishing an endless gossip to the trivial, and intellectual interest to the serious."