Common Sense (1776) helped to establish the rhetorical style of American political writing. If you have been reading American literature chronologically,Common Sense may strike you as verbal revolution, an affirmation of plain speech and simple language as well as of the principles of the rebellion against England. The English language has two great word-streams in it: the Romantic stream, which poured in through Latin and French; and the Anglo-Saxon, which gives us a vast legacy of taut, strong, vivid words. Unlike many of his eighteenth-century contemporaries, Paine favored the Anglo-Saxon--and American public discourse, from the Preamble to the Constitution through the Gettysburg Address and the "I have a dream" speech, has followed his lead.