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Social media in teaching and research As a follow-up on the article Twitteren met een Twist in the final issue of Forum (19 April), the Bridging the Unbridgeable project is organising a session on the (potential) benefits social media can … Continue reading
One of my most delightful discoveries when I was looking for first quotations from eighteenth-century authors in the OED was that Fanny Burney was cited as the first user of ain’t. The source was Evelina, her first novel published in 1778, which contains much more non-standard language. I consequently reported this in my chapter called “English at the onset of the normative tradition” in Lynda Mugglestone’s book The Oxford History of English (OUP 2006).
The book will soon be reissued as a second edition, so we were asked to correct any errors, and, in relation to the changes made to the OED since the time we did our research for the book, to update the text. To my utter disappointment, Fanny Burney is no longer quoted as the first user of ain’t. Worse, though, the first cited quotation is now from 1845, later than the actual first occurrence! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Fortunately, credit is still given to Fanny Burney in The Merriam Webster New Book of Word Histories, p. 8.
Meanwhile, what to do with my corrections for the Oxford History of English chapter? Should I leave the reference in, despite the fact that it is no longer in the OED?
This is a question Jimmie Fane, a character in Kingsley Amis’s novel The Biographer’s
Mustache (1996), asks his biographer Gordon Scott-Thomson. The question relates to the word often, and he asks:
How do you pronounce O, F, T, E, N? Sounding the T or not? (1996:68).
Language is often an issue in Amis’s novels, as in this one. Fane is decribed on the blurb as
an unashamed snob, has many pet hates, including younger men with moustaches and trendy pronunciation. Scott-Thomson, however, is extremely attached to his own moustache and not so particular about his use of language.
The biographer with the double-barrelled name is also made to use a split infinitive (“what was in your mind when you agreed to not merely let me write something about you”, 1996: 87), and other questions of pronunciation come up: “Gordon would have expected to be asked how he pronounced CONTROVERSY or IDEAL” (1996:87).
This features – the pronunciation of often, controversy and ideal – were evidently considerd sociolinguistically salient at the time (though I’m not really sure what the problem is with ideal). Are they still so today? Do people still vary between OFTEN and OFFEN?
How old is could of, should of, would of, the controversial issue reported on elsewhere in this blog?
On reading the proofs for my chapter in the second edition of The Oxford History of English, edited by Lynda Mugglestone and first published in 2006, I was reminded of the fact that the writer Betsy Sheridan (1758-1837) had written in her diary on 16 September 1785: “I should not of known her” (ed. Lefanu 1986:69). As early as that!
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High time for a new usage poll: items 31 – 35 from Mittins et al. (1970). Let us have your votes please! And should this poll really get you into the mood for more, there are six more polls to … Continue reading
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Elsewhere in this blog I reported on the first quotation from the OED for the term “flat adverb”: 1871 J. Earle Philol. Eng. Tongue vii. 361 The Flat Adverb is simply a substantive or an adjective placed in an adverbial position. (This … Continue reading
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For a paper I’m writing in the context of the Bridging the Unbridgeable project I’m doing a survey into attitudes to particular usage problems. For this pilot study, I’m collecting texts in which people express their opinions to such usage … Continue reading
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Next academic year, second semester, Ingrid Tieken will teach an MA course called “Prescription and Prescriptivism”. More details will be announced on the Leiden University website soon. Course description: Prescription and prescriptivism are perceived, particularly by linguists, as rather negative … Continue reading
