During the final month of 2022 I read two of Ian McEwan’s novels, an earlier one, Saturday (2005), and his most recent Lessons (2022). Ever since reading his short story “Mother tongue” (2001) I’ve been keeping track of his metalinguistic … Continue reading
Eighteen months or so ago I wrote a post about John le Carré, because I’d discovered that, like Kingsley Amis, Len Deighton and Ian McEwan, he too writes metalinguistic usage comments in his novels. My post then was about a … Continue reading
Metalinguistic comments that is, as in the novels of Kingsley Amis, Len Deighton and Ian McEwan. Reading A Most Wanted Man (2008), I came across several references to accent but also one to who/whom: But for how long? And from who? … Continue reading
Most of the usage problems studied by Mittins et al. in the late 1960s (Attitudes to English Usage, 1970) have since increased in acceptability. This is what we tested by repeating their survey in the form of usage polls on this … Continue reading
In the last two years, we have encouraged readers of English Today to contribute to our research project in our interactive features which can also be found here. The input we have received so far has been invaluable and we … Continue reading
Here is the last feature by a member of our project in the new issue of English Today. It is republished on this blog with permission from Cambridge University Press, which owns the copyright to this piece. The original is available at Cambridge Journals Online. To … Continue reading
Is the so-called High Rise Terminal, HRT for short and also called Upspeak, developing into a new usage problem? Robert Ilson, in an article in The English Language Today (1985), mentions three criteria that define linguistic features as potential usage … 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
Bridging the Unbridgeable 