The 1712 proposal for an official English Language Academy

Jonathan Swift, the star striker of 18th-century satire, tried a tactical masterclass in 1712. He wanted to freeze English in its prime, like a manager locking a winning squad in a permanent time loop.

He proposed an official "English Academy" to act as the ultimate referee. This board would "fix" our words, red-carding any new slang or messy grammar that threatened the purity of the league.

It was a bold play for total control. But Queen Anne died before the whistle blew, and English remained a wild, unregulated street game.

Wait, what was so 'messy' about the language that it needed a referee?

Swift felt English was suffering a massive drop in form. To him, it was a chaotic Sunday league match where players ignored the fundamentals. He worried that because the rules changed so fast, authors from just 200 years prior were already becoming unreadable.

He was playing for the legacy trophy. If the grammar pitch kept shifting, his own satires would be unintelligible in a century. He wanted to freeze the meta so his work would stay in the top flight forever.

The 'mess' included lazy shortcuts like 'mob.' He saw these as cheap substitutions that weakened the squad's integrity. He wanted an elite vocabulary that would never face relegation.

Why did a tiny word like 'mob' cause such a massive sideline tantrum?

Swift saw 'mob' as a symptom of a lazy league. It was an abbreviation of the Latin 'mobile vulgus', meaning 'the fickle crowd'. To him, clipping words was like a star striker refusing to run the full length of the pitch—it was sloppy and lacked the dignity of the professional game.

He feared that if writers kept taking these shortcuts, the English kit would eventually fall apart. If you start hacking off syllables to save time, you lose the precision and history that make the language elite. For Swift, 'mob' wasn't just a word; it was a foul against the very soul of the sport.

But how do you actually red-card someone for saying a word?

Swift’s game plan was to release an official "Rulebook of English." This wouldn't just be a dictionary; it would be the ultimate VAR system. If a word wasn't in the book, it simply didn't exist in professional play.

He wanted the Academy to have the power to "relegate" low-quality words. By setting a gold standard for printing and education, he hoped to shame the "slang-heavy" players out of the elite league.

It was about reputation. If the top-tier writers and the government only used "Academy-approved" English, the messy street version would lose its status and eventually forfeit the match.

Who actually gets to sit in the VAR room and make these calls?

Swift’s dream squad was an elite committee of about twenty members. He didn't want dusty academics; he wanted the heavy hitters of the literary and political world.

Imagine a selection committee of the league's top-scoring poets and most powerful lords. These "word-referees" would meet to vote on which new terms were fit for the first team and which belonged in the bin.

By stacking the panel with celebrities, Swift hoped their "Academy-approved" style would become the only way to get a "pro contract" in high society.