Rick Rubenstein wrote:<\/p>\n
Is the usage \"I can't speak to the Iranian situation\" as opposed to \"I can't speak [about\/regarding] the Iranian situation\" relatively recent (or at least recently accelerating), as I perceive it to be? I feel as though I first noticed it about a decade ago, and found it very strange. I'm now almost accustomed to it.<\/span><\/p>\n There's no question that \"speak to (a topic)\" is quite a bit more recent than \"speak of (a topic)\", and somewhat more recent than \"speak about (a topic)\". But Rick is probably not old enough to have noticed the difference.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the OED's entry for speak<\/strong><\/em>, the sub-entry II.11.a. <\/strong>Speak of<\/em>, which is glossed \"To mention, or discourse upon, in speech or writing\", is cited from about 825:<\/p>\n c825<\/strong> Vesp. Psalter<\/em> cxviii. 46 [Ic] sprec of cy\u00f0nissum \u00f0inum in \u1d79esih\u00f0e cyninga. c950<\/strong> Lindisf. Gosp. Luke<\/em> ix. 11 [He] spr\u00e6cc him of ric godes. c1175<\/strong> Lamb. Hom.<\/em> 73 Of \u00fee halie fulht spec ure drihten on o\u00f0er stude. c1200<\/strong> ORMIN 6784 Goddspellboc ne speke\u00fe \u00fe nohht Off all \u00featt o\u00feerr genge. c1340<\/strong> HAMPOLE Pr. Consc.<\/em> 2683 Here es \u00fee thred parte of \u00feis buke spedde \u00deat spekes of \u00fee dede. 1422<\/strong> Secreta Secret., Priv. Priv.<\/em> 203 Of this Spekyth the boke of Iudyth. 1530<\/strong> PALSGR. 727\/2, I go nowe beyondsee, but if God send me lyfe you shall here speke of me. 1603<\/strong> PARSONS Three Convers. Eng.<\/em> II. viii. 481, I shall haue occasion to speake againe of these heretiks in the next chapter. 1730<\/strong> A. GORDON Maffei's Amphith. <\/em>58 The Theatre..is spoke of by Martial. 1818<\/strong> SCOTT Br. Lamm.<\/em> xviii, \u2018And speaking of red-game,\u2019 said the young scape-grace, interrupting his father. 1884<\/strong> tr. Lotze's Metaph.<\/em> 43 A common-place with every philosophy which spoke of Things at all.<\/span><\/p>\n In contrast, the sub-entry II.14.e.<\/strong> Speak to<\/em>, glossed \"To treat of or deal with, to discuss or comment on, (a subject) in speech or writing\", is only cited from 1610, almost eight centuries later:<\/p>\n 1610<\/strong> J. DOVE Advt. Seminaries <\/em>42, I desire them therefore..to speake to these foure points. 1637<\/strong> HEYLIN Answ. Burton <\/em>78, For your charges,..I meane to take them..in order, and speake as briefely to them, as you would desire. 1662<\/strong> STILLINGFL. Orig. Sacr\u00e6<\/em> II. vi. \u00a74 Though it be a subject little spoken to either by Jewish or Christian Writers. 1706<\/strong> STANHOPE Paraphr.<\/em> III. 555 Part of this Scripture hath already been spoken to. 1724<\/strong> SWIFT Drapier's Lett. <\/em>Wks. 1755 V. II. 110 A lawyer, who speaks to a cause, when the matter hath been almost exhausted by those who spoke before. 1778<\/strong> EARL MALMESBURY Diaries & Corr.<\/em> I. 166 Unprepared as he was for such a proposition, he could not, he said, off-hand, speak to it accurately. 1869<\/strong> Daily News<\/em> 28 Apr., The report..was spoken to by the Most Rev. Chairman..and the Bishop of Derry. 1880 <\/strong>Ibid.<\/em> 19 Mar. 2\/3, I wish to call your attention..to..that allegation, and I shall endeavour to speak to it.<\/span><\/p>\n As for Speak about<\/em> (sub-entry II.8<\/strong>), it's cited back to 1300 or so, validating Rick's sense of its antiquity:<\/p>\n a1300<\/strong> Cursor M.<\/em> 24795 For to spek abute sum pais. 1605<\/strong> SHAKES. Macb.<\/em> I. iii. 83 Were such things here, as we doe speake about? 1671<\/strong> H. M. tr. Erasm. Colloq.<\/em> 263 He falls on speaking about the success of their business. 1737-<\/strong> [see 14b]. 1843<\/strong> J. H. NEWMAN Lett. <\/em>(1891) II. 430 Sermons which speak more confidently about our position than I inwardly feel.<\/span><\/p>\n Rick also asks, \"I'm also curious which side of the Atlantic this usage may have sprouted from.\" It seems clear from the OED entry that all the early action was on the British side of the Atlantic.<\/p>\n More seriously, it's quite possible that there's been a recent to<\/em>-ward change in the balance of usage among the prepositions used with speak<\/em><\/strong> to express topic (which include at least of, about, regarding, on, upon,<\/em> and to<\/em>, of course with somewhat different shades of meaning and structural distributions).<\/p>\n Unfortunately, it's going to be a chore to test this quantitatively. One obvious problem is that there may be various things between the verb and a prepositional phrase expressing topic, e.g. \"Mr. Pettijohn spoke at length regarding the Rocky Top Road issue\". Another, more serious, problem is that in most instances of \"speak to\", the object of to<\/em><\/strong> is the audience, not the topic (\"Palin Speaks to Investors in Hong Kong\"). So (lacking an automatic classifier with adequate performance), you'd have to get a suitable random sample of instances of speak<\/strong><\/em> over time, and classify each one by hand. This is likely to take more work than will fit into one Breakfast Experiment\u2122, at least with the resources now available to me.<\/p>\n