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One of my (British) colleagues the other day mentioned that his sixteen-year-old daughter was very much surprised to learn that of in could of was not a preposition but an auxiliary verb. (For clarity’s sake, the girl’s father is a linguist and … Continue reading
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… is the title of a book by Mark Liberman and Geoffrey K. Pullum, published in 2006. Based on their blog Language Log, it contains items on English usage but also topics that “might provoke a good laugh or draw … Continue reading
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A little while ago we received an e-mail from the Collins Language Team with the request to review the beta version of their new free online dictionary. Although this is clearly part of a strategy of buzz marketing, I am … Continue reading
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I’m currently reading James Pennebaker’s book The Secret Life of Pronouns (Bloomsbury Press, 2011): fascinating and intriguing, and I find myself nervously watching my own pronoun use as I write (too many first person pronouns already in this first sentence to … Continue reading
Recently, one of my tutors pointed out my use of thusly in an essay. I used it thus: (except I would have added -ly there). Frankly, I was surprised to see it. Thusly was not a conscious choice during composition. … Continue reading
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In a short story called “Mother Tongue” (2001), Ian McEwan writes about his efforts at acquiring standard English, a variety he had not learnt at home. As a result of his reading novels by Iris Murdoch and Graham Greene, [s]lowly, … Continue reading
A new usage poll is available: it is the fifth one, which we temporarily skipped. Please fill it in and let us know what you think about older than me evenings as a plain adverb different than the placement of … Continue reading
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One of our readers mentioned Jane Austen in relation to an earlier post on the recommendation to avoid try and in favour of try to. Searching the novels for “try and” I found one instance, in Emma: I shall try … Continue reading
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… one of our readers asked a few days ago. “Where was he working when the National Council of Educational Standards asked him to write The Language Trap? Was he an academic?” she asked. What we know about John Honey … Continue reading
One of my colleagues asked me the following question: Do you happen to know when the ‘rule’ of not beginning a sentence with a conjunction was formulated? This is just the sort of question that we would be able to answer … Continue reading
Bridging the Unbridgeable 