Monthly Archives: September 2011

A which hunt

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Ingrid Tieken

This was how David Denison (Manchester), in a paper jointly presented at the Helsinki Corpus Festival with Marianne Hundt (Zurich), described the American phobia for which in non-restrictive relative clauses. American users are advised to “use that before a restrictive clause and which before … Continue reading →

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Loss of the passive

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Ingrid Tieken

Today, Geoffrey Leech (University of Lancaster) gave a plenary lecture at the Helsinki Corpus Festival, called “Decline and (?)disappearance: The negative side of recent changes in Standard English”. One of his examples of recent change was the loss of the … Continue reading →

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Prescriptivism in other languages?

Posted on September 27, 2011 by BtU Admin

Fowler is a virtual icon of British prescriptivism. But what about other languages? Do other languages – French, Dutch, Russian, Chinese … – have similar traditions of prescriptive writing on language for a general public?

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Genre prescriptivism

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Robin Straaijer

I was just thinking how different levels of prescriptiveness, different models of correctness are implemented on different genres or text types. Why for instance is the clipped language of newspaper headlines not considered ‘wrong’ while such usage would be criticised … Continue reading →

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Was Lowth a purist?

Posted on September 25, 2011 by Ingrid Tieken

When I gave a presentation on my recently published book The Bishop’s Grammar (OUP, 2011) in Cambridge earlier this year, a member of the audience asked if Lowth was ever described as a purist. The only reference I could think of was … Continue reading →

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Refusing to condemn “ain’t”

Posted on September 24, 2011 by Ingrid Tieken

This week’s New York Times Sunday Book Review includes an essay by Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist from the University of California (Berkeley), called “When a dictionary could outrage“. Nunberg compares the recent decision of the Oxford English Dictionary to adopt … Continue reading →

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Attitudes to English usage: a poll

Posted on September 23, 2011 by BtU Admin

A survey of attitudes to English usage was carried out in the late 1960s, and published in 1970 as Attitudes to English Usage, by W.H. Mittins, Mary Salu, Mary Edmonson, and Sheila Coyne (OUP). The survey covered 55 sentences that … Continue reading →

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Hun hebben: a Dutch usage problem

Posted on September 22, 2011 by BtU Admin

About 18 months ago, a great uproar arose as a result of a discussion on television between Helen de Hoop, who has a chair in theoretical linguistics at the University of Nijmegen, and the then minister of education in the … Continue reading →

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Project events

Posted on September 21, 2011 by BtU Admin

The first presentation in the Bridging the Unbridgeable project was on 21 September, as a contribution to the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics Taalgebruiksseminar: Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, “Bridging the Unbridgeable”. Shortly after that, another paper on the topic of … Continue reading →

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Usage Guide Drive

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Robin Straaijer

Help us bridge the unbridgeable! For the project Bridging the Unbridgeable we are compiling a database of English usage guides and this is why we’re inviting you to contribute. Not nearly as many usage guides are available in electronic form … Continue reading →

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