Today's variation, tomorrow's change

[bwald]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>I am currently away from home and most of my research sources, and I can't
>remember where the statement, "Today's variation is tomorrow's change"
>comes from (i.e., how to cite it). Any help?

>Randall Gess

I don't know who said it, but it sounds like a safe bet -- as long as it's
about "tomorrow".  Eventually everything that's not universal in a language
will change, and as far as I know, no particular variation is universal.
So you'll collect on your bet -- tomorrow (no matter when you read or
re-read this).

Apart from that, not all variation is indicative of change in progress, or
even imminent change.  There is stable variation.  For example, in most
varieties of English -ing vs. -in' is stable variation influenced primarily
by register, that is, by the speakers' social relationship to each other in
the situation.  For a few varieties the variation has been resolved in
various ways, e.g., in urban South Africa there is only -ing (for Anglos),
in the South, but particularly in the Caribbean, -in' is dominant.