The creation of a database of English usage guides and usage problems: the Hyper Usage Guide of English, or HUGE-database, is one of the sub-projects within Bridging the Unbridgeable. It is the first database to combine more than two hundred years of usage advice into a single reference library.

The HUGE-database contains usage guides from the entire history of the genre, starting in 1770 with the publication of the first ever usage guide, Robert Baker’s Reflections on the English Language in 1770, up to the present day with one of the most recently published usage guides, Simon Heffer’s Strictly English.

The databse will also include such evergreens and best-sellers as Henry Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage (perhaps the most famous usage guide of them all) Bryan Garner’s Modern American Usage, Strunk & White’s Elements of Style and Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss.

We are still in the process of compiling the database, so it keeps growing all the time. We are currently working on an extension, which includes bibliographic information of secondary sources that deal with specific usage guides or usage problems. For now, the database can only be used in the project Bridging the Unbridgeable, but pending current copyright negotiations, we would like to eventually make the database more widely available.

Users can expect to find detailed advice on many usage problems in the English language, and will be able to compare usage advice across guides, across time and two varieties of English.