As a non-native learner of English I was taught in school that try and was a typical English idiom, and I’ve always happily used it. I was therefore surprised to learn that try and was reported as being one of … Continue reading
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Elsewhere in this blog we reported on the controversial use of hun hebben in Dutch today: it is widely used, possibly even spreading rapidly, but highly stigmatised at the same time. The pronoun hun in standard Dutch is an oblique form (“them”) or … Continue reading
One of the readers of this blog drew our attention to the fact that there is a list of disputed usages in Wikipedia. The list includes ain’t, less for fewer, like for as, which were all dealt with elsewhere in this … Continue reading
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During the past few days we have acquired two sets of autograph letters by John Honey. One set, as the image below illustrates, contains a large number of letters connected with the reception of his controversial pamphlet The Language Trap … Continue reading
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The quotation in this title is from an article by David Crystal on the split infinitive which appeared in English Today in 1985. It was taken from a book by Robert Burchfield, The English Language, which had come out that … Continue reading
Bridging the Unbridgeable 