Thanks for the link, Casdon.
The work of Noah Webster is a particular interest of mine in connection with the development of different Englishes around the word.
Webster was the driver behind American English and why it now differs in spelling to English English. Amongst other things, it strips out superfluous letters - making it easier for the many migrants in the late 1700s/early 1800s to learn English as a second (or more) language. As well as distinguishing American English from its former colonial past, spelling reform was also a means to stimulate the American print industry which hitherto had imported much of its reading matter from Britain.
If Webster said that “Language is the tie that connects past with future, and binds together the citizens of the same nation.” that’s what he means - not to bolster Goodwin’s fallacious argument that “millions no longer speak the national tongue.” Language reform was to faciliate learning.
Sixmith makes the point that the right is unusually post-literate which begs the question why publish the book? And why is it written, [as i] if he seems to think that the average member of the “forgotten majority” has the reading level of a dimwitted 12-year-old? We often hear supporters ofReform claiming that others assume they are not well-educated. So why is Goodwin, who is very articulate, dumbing down in this way?