Standard written English refers to the preferred form of English as it is written according to prescriptive authorities associated with publishing houses and schools. As there is no regulatory body for the English language, there is some disagreement about correct usage, though there is enough agreement that the written form of English is relatively transcendent of dialectal variation. In addition to being used in written media such as books and newspapers, it is also the basis of Signed English.

John H. Fisher, author of The Emergence of Standard English, observes that in Spanish, Italian, French, and English, the written languages became standardised before the spoken languages, and that these provide frames of reference for what is considered standard speech. He said, in an interview for the Children of the Code project:

I came to the conclusion that all of the discussion of standardisation of language was a discussion of the written forms of language. It had nothing to do with spoken language. We don't have the spoken language standardised yet. When we say that we're speaking Standard English, what we're doing is transferring into our spoken vocabulary and syntax the elements of the written language. What is standard in what you and I are talking now is what we get from our writing.

Relationship with spoken forms

There are grammatical constructions and words that one uses in speech that one generally avoids in written compositions. Even in the most colloquial of online chats, interjections such as "like" are rarer than in speech.

Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry

Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...

 stated his view on the exclusivities of Written English in an anonymous essay on Wodehouse

P. G. Wodehouse

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...

:

The language, however, lives and breathes in its written, printed form. Let me use an example, taken at random.

I flip open a book of stories and happen on Bertie and Jeeves discussing a young man called Cyril Bassington-Bassington.

Jeeves: "I am familiar with the name Bassington-Bassington, sir. There are three branches of the Bassington-Bassington family – the

Shropshire Bassington-Bassingtons, the Hampshire Bassington-Bassingtons, and the Kent Bassington-Bassingtons."

Well, try as hard as actors might, such an exchange will always work best on the page.

Indeed, Wodehouse uses this aspect of the written language when the name "Psmith

Psmith

Rupert Psmith is a recurring fictional character in several novels by British comic writer P. G...

" is explained on the page as being "Psmith" with a silent "P" as in "Pshrimp." This humour cannot be translated into the spoken word.

Morphology

Because of a writing system that incorporates etymology, spelling cues not present in oral discourse can give readers additional clues to the relationship between words through a vague awareness of different morphological classes.

Anglo-Saxon words are usually characterised by a cloudy morphology (early\ere), wildly unphonemic spelling, and the presence of silent letters and digraphs. Common affixes are “un-”, “-ful”, and “-ness”. These are the most common words used to describe everyday, informal and interpersonal matters.

Romance words are also common and bear closer resemblance to French morphemes and words (very\vrais). There is often more regularity in their spelling.

Latinate and Greek words are set apart from Romance words by very methodical morphology, Classical Latin and Greek morphemes, and consistent spelling. They usually have rigid definitions and are used more frequently in formal and scientific writing as well as in constructing technical, philosophical, and legal jargon.

Hybrids (e.g. kay, Byte, Prisoner) have the relative formality and familiarity of Romance words.

Change through time

To most modern readers, the temporal horizon of intelligibility of Written English (independently of speech) is very roughly 600 years, assuming minimal regional variation. There are exceptions. An astute modern reader might extrapolate "Well thou writest." from the millennium-old sentence "Wel ðu writst."

• Dated circa AD 1000.

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum si þin nama
gehalgod tobecume þin rice gewurþe þin willa
on eorðan swa swa on heofonum urne
gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us to dæg
and forgyf us ure gyltas
swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum
and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele
soþlice.

• Dated AD 1384.

Ovre fadir þat art in hevenes halwid be þi name;
þi revme or kyngdom come to be.
Be þi wille don in herþe as it is dovn in hevene.
yeve to vs today ovre eche dayes bred.
And foryeve to vs ovre dettis þat is ovre synnys as we foryeven to ovre dettovris þat is to men
þat han synned in us.
And lede vs not into temptacion bvt delyvere vs from evyl.

• Dated AD 1611.

Ovr father which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
Give vs this day ovr daily bread.
And forgive vs ovr debts as we forgive ovr debters.
And lead vs not into temptation,
bvt deliver vs from evill.

• Dated AD 2011.

Our father, who is in heaven,
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us each day our daily bread.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.