Monthly Archives: February 2013

Avoid saying ‘ketchup’

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Robin Straaijer

Looking through usage guides makes me notice prescriptions that haven´t quite ‘taken’. Especially older usage guides can be an amusing source of these. These prescriptions, in addition to prescribing current usage, often also give a prediction for future usage. A while ago, … Continue reading →

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The greengrocer’s apostrophe

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Anoeska Bronswijk

I came across an interesting generalisation concerning the use of the apostrophe with plurals on the website  of the Apostrophe Protection Society, quoted in Beal (2010): 3. Apostrophes are NEVER ever used to denote plurals! Common examples of such abuse (all seen in … Continue reading →

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John E. Metcalfe?

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Ingrid Tieken

Who was John E. Metcalfe? He appears to have been the author of a usage guide, called The Right Way to Improve your English. The book is cited by Milroy and Milroy (1999), but (apart from a couple of references to … Continue reading →

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Give me some data!

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Viktorija Kostadinova

Researching language in its social context inevitably includes collecting considerable amounts of data. As I move closer to the fieldwork period of my research project, I have set up a new blog to help me get in touch with (primarily) … Continue reading →

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God Save the Queen … and this blog, innit?

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Carmen Ebner

The time has come to launch the blog of my PhD project called Proper English Usage: A sociolinguistic investigation of usage attitudes in the ‘Golden triangle’. The title of this post will probably have given away the target group of … Continue reading →

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Baker and the apostrophe

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Beatriz Medina Sánchez

Baker’s Reflections (1770) includes, among others, rules on the proper usage of the apostrophe (XXV). According to his remarks, this punctuation mark ought to be avoided when the writer intends to indicate a plural and he also encourages the audience … Continue reading →

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Publication history Fowler ctd.

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Ingrid Tieken

In an earlier post, I announced my attempts to reconstruct the publication history of Fowler’s Modern English Usage. This weekend, I was able to lay my hands on another copy of Fowler (my 8th!) at the same second-hand shop, and equally … Continue reading →

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Pre-conference workshop

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Robin Straaijer

Attitudes to Prescriptivism is the theme of a workshop that we will hold on Tuesday 11 June 2013as a ramp-up to the conference Prescription and Tradition in Language which will take place here at Leiden University. There is more information about the workshop on the … Continue reading →

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My amazement with amaze

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Carmen Ebner

Checking one’s facebook page in the morning is probably one of the first things done by any “normal” facebook addict. Well, having said that, I am one of them. So this morning, still sleepily taking a few sips of my … Continue reading →

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Prescription conference papers

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Ingrid Tieken

For a list of speakers  at the prescription conference (University of Leiden, 12 – 14 June 2013) as well as for the abstracts of the plenary speakers, see the black bar above. The abstracts of the speakers will follow soon.

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