The paper focuses on three important themes in historical sociolinguistics: (1) the emergence of national language planning in the Netherlands around 1800, (2) the influence of historical prescriptivism on usage, and (3) genre as a crucial factor in explaining variation and change. The case study deals with relativisation, particularly the neuter relative pronoun in eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Dutch. Analysing both internal and external factors, we show that the definiteness of the antecedent does not explain the variation, contrary to what is assumed in the research literature. Likewise, a strong effect of language norms on usage patterns cannot be established. The crucial factor turns out to be genre.

When 17th century personal correspondence was studied, it was observed that women used the evidential expression I THINK more often than men. A closer analysis showed that women also used other 1st person evidential verbs as well as the 1st and 2nd person pronouns more frequently than men. This male/female difference was maintained even in different registers, although both sexes have higher frequencies of I THINK in more intimate circumstances, such as when the informants are writing to their friends or close family members. The male/female differences in frequencies are explained as a difference in the style of communication. Women's style is more “involved” and interactive: personal point of view is frequently expressed, and both the writer and the addressee are overtly included in the communication situation. Interestingly, similar differences have also been found in Present-Day English.

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