Recently, Professor Anne Curzan gave a talk in Washington, D.C., at a conference called Language and Liberty. Since the nation will mark the 250th anniversary of its founding this year, Curzan took the opportunity to dive into the language of the Declaration of Independence.
For starters, Curzan found that the Declaration of Independence could have just as easily been titled the Declaration of Independency. In the late 18th century, the nouns "independence" and "independency" were in fierce competition, and either title would've sounded okay to readers in 1776. "Independence" ultimately won out, and "independency" fell out of common usage.
Here's some linguistic trivia: How many times does the word "independence" actually appear in the Declaration of Independence? That's a trick question, since the answer is zero times. But that doesn't mean "independency" was used in its place — neither noun appears. However, the adjective "independent" shows up four times.
Some may argue that "independence" appears once, because it's part of the title. However, if you look at the original document, "Declaration of Independence" isn't there. Instead, the top of the document says, in big letters, "In Congress, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration, of the thirteen united States of America." As a title, that would've been quite a mouthful.
Keep looking through the original text and you’ll notice that many words are capitalized, not just proper nouns or the beginnings of sentences. To hear why that is and more about the language of the Declaration of Independence, listen to the audio above.
