Editing William Caxton (section)

==Caxton and the English language==
Caxton printed 80 percent of his works in the English language. He translated a large number of works into English and performed much of the translation and the editing work himself. He is credited with printing as many as 108 books, 87 of which were different titles, including the first English translation of ''[[Aesop's Fables]]'' (26 March 1484<ref>{{cite book |last=Painter |first=George Duncan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KmoaAAAAMAAJ&q=aesop%2527s+fables+march+1484 |title=William Caxton: a biography |publisher=Putnam |year=1977 |isbn=9780399118883 |pages=180 }}</ref>). Caxton also translated 26 of the titles himself. His major guiding principle in translating was an honest desire to provide the most linguistically exact replication of foreign language texts into English, but the hurried publishing schedule and his inadequate skill as a translator often led to wholesale transference of French words into English and to numerous misunderstandings.<ref>James A. Knapp, "Translating for Print: Continuity and Change in Caxton's ''Mirrour of the World''", in: ''Translation, Transformation, and Transubstantiation'', ed. Carol Poster and Richard Utz (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998), pp. 65–90.</ref>

[[Image:Caxton Showing the First Specimen of His Printing to King Edward IV at the Almonry, Westminster.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|right|Caxton showing the first specimen of his printing to King [[Edward IV]] and [[Elizabeth Woodville|Queen Elizabeth]] at the Almonry, Westminster (painting by [[Daniel Maclise]])]]
The English language was changing rapidly in Caxton's time, and the works that he was given to print were in a variety of styles and dialects. Caxton was a technician, rather than a writer, and he often faced dilemmas concerning language standardisation in the books that he printed. He wrote about that subject in the preface to his ''[[Aeneid|Eneydos]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bl.uk/treasures/caxton/english.html|title=Caxton's Chaucer – Caxton's English|first=C.|last=Wight|website=www.bl.uk}}</ref> His successor Wynkyn de Worde faced similar problems.

Caxton is credited with standardising the English language through printing by homogenising regional dialects and largely adopting the London dialect. That facilitated the expansion of English vocabulary, the regularisation of [[inflection]] and [[syntax]] and a widening gap between the spoken and the written words. [[Richard Pynson]] started printing in London in 1491 or 1492 and favoured what came to be called [[Chancery Standard]], largely based on the London dialect. Pynson was a more accomplished stylist than Caxton and consequently pushed the English language further toward standardisation.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Baddeley|first1=Susan|last2=Voeste|first2=Anja|title=Orthographies in early modern Europe|date=2012|publisher=De Gruyter Mouton|location=Berlin|isbn=9783110288179|page=148}}</ref>

It is asserted that the spelling of "ghost" with the silent letter ''h'' was adopted by Caxton from the influence of Flemish spelling habits.<ref>[[Simon Garfield]], ''[[Just My Type: A Book About Fonts]]'' (New York: Gotham Books, 2011), pp. 82. {{ISBN|978-1-59240-652-4}}</ref><ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/sep/14/spell-it-out-david-crystal-review ''Spell It Out'' by David Crystal – review], ''[[The Guardian]]'', 14 September 2012</ref>

===Caxton's "egges" anecdote===
[[File:What sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte egges or eyren?.jpg|thumb|left|The famous fragment about eggs in the original edition]]
In Caxton's prologue to the 1490 edition of his translation of [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]'', called by him ''Eneydos'',<ref name="British Library - Caxton's 'egges' story">{{cite web |title=Caxton's 'egges' story |url=http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126611.html |website=[[British Library]] |access-date=24 November 2018}}</ref> he refers to the problems of finding a standardised English.<ref name="Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland - Caxton's Tale of Eggs and the North Foreland, Kent">{{cite web |last1=Breeze |first1=Andrew |title=Caxton's Tale of Eggs and the North Foreland, Kent |url=http://www.snsbi.org.uk/Nomina_articles/Nomina_23_Breeze.pdf |website=[[Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland]] |access-date=24 November 2018}}</ref> Caxton recounts what took place when a boat sailing from London to [[Zeeland]] was becalmed, and landed on the Kent side of the [[Thames]].<ref name="British Library - Caxton's 'egges' story"/>

A [[Mercery|mercer]] called Sheffield was from the north of England. He went into a house and asked the "good wyf" if he could buy some "[[wikt:egg#English|egges]]". She replied that she could not speak French, which annoyed him, as he could also not speak French. A bystander suggested that Sheffield was asking for "[[wikt:ey#English|eyren]]", which the woman said she understood.<ref name="British Library - Caxton's 'egges' story"/> After recounting the interaction, Caxton wrote: "Loo what ſholde a man in thyſe dayes now wryte egges or eyren/ certaynly it is harde to playſe euery man/ by cauſe of dyuerſite ⁊ chaũge of langage" ("Lo, what should a man in these days now write: egges or eyren? Certainly it is hard to please every man because of diversity and change of language").<ref name="British Library -Caxton's Chaucer - Caxton's English">{{cite web |title=Caxton's Chaucer – Caxton's English |url=https://www.bl.uk/treasures/caxton/english.html |website=[[British Library]] |access-date=29 November 2018}}</ref>