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Author Archives: Robin Straaijer
Usage guides… there’s no getting away from them!
Yesterday, I found this well-worn copy of Margaret Nicholson’s A Dictionary of American-English Usage (Signet 1958) in my local street library (see photo below) just around the corner of where I live. I realised that it has been just about … Continue reading
Posted in usage guide
Tagged fowler, HUGE, Oxford University Press, publication history, Signet, usage guides
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Fowler’s Modern English Usage: new but not New
It was February 1997, and Robert Burchfield’s The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage had been out for three months. Just as the 1st and 2nd editions of the Dictionary of Modern English Usage came to be known as ‘Fowler’, The Economist asked itself whether the … Continue reading
Onto doesn’t exist?
Last week, Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade published a post on Simon Heffer’s discussion of into on this blog. In his discussion of into in Strictly English, Heffer mentions a closely related usage item, the use of on to versus onto, of which … Continue reading
Posted in usage features, usage guide
Tagged COHA, HUGE, oed, onto, Simon Heffer, Strictly English
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Practicing with the HUGE database
Last week we ran a workshop with a group of language professionals in which they explored the HUGE database with some practice searches. Those practice search questions are now also available on the database page so you can do the same. … Continue reading
Posted in usage features
Tagged ain't, between you and I, dangling participle, database, HUGE, literally, split infinitive, that/which, who vs. whom
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The HUGE database: data entry
We have just finished the last video about the compilation of the HUGE database. Watch it here on our YouTube channel.
Figures from 2014
It’s the start of a new year and thus a good time to rack up some numbers from our presence last year on social media. Here they are: To start, we presently have more followers than ever: over 800 people now … Continue reading
user manual
The user manual for the HUGE database is finished! It can be downloaded as a pdf here. The manual contains a general introduction and information on the construction and content of the HUGE database, as well as example searches of all … Continue reading
There is a new video about creating the HUGE database on our YouTube channel. Watch it here.
On November 7, The Washington Post published my review of Steven Pinker’s The Sense of Style. You can read it on their website here. It also appeared in the print newspaper on the same day under the title ‘The Sense of Style,’ … Continue reading
Steven Pinker’s Sense of Usage
Last month, Steven Pinker’s The Sense of Style was published in Britain and the US. As a specialist on books of usage advice, and as someone who needs to write for a living, I find The Sense of Style interesting because it … Continue reading
Posted in news, usage guide
Tagged alternative, flat adverbs, language myths, SENSE, Sense of Style, Steven Pinker, Strunk and White, style
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Bridging the Unbridgeable 