The present article argues that the social category of "standardisation" has been instrumental in creating a Foucaultian discourse archive governing what may and what may not be stated on the subject of the history of English. It analyses the question of how language attitudes have been instrumental in creating the myths that have driven the discourse of Standard English since the 19th century, but it goes further than this by showing how language performance, in the form of folk songs in England, has also come under this same archive of standardisation. However, in both cases, i.e. language and language performance, it is argued that a below-the-surface alternative discourse has now gained enough force to seriously challenge the doctrine of standardisation and to necessitate the formation of new discursive contents for a social concept that is in serious danger of becoming hollow and outdated.