Author Archives: Ingrid Tieken

Dahlesque got in, so how about Fowleresque?

Posted on September 29, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Two weeks ago, NRC-Handelsblad published an article on the memorable fact that among their new entries, the Oxford English Dictionary adopted words made up by Roald Dahl (1916-1990). The OED as a news item in a Dutch quality newspaper! The occasion appears … Continue reading →

Posted in news, usage guide | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

500 Mistakes of Daily Occurrence online

Posted on September 14, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Yesterday, completely by chance, I came across a digitised version of the anonymous usage guide (also included in the HUGE database) called 500 Mistakes of Daily Occrrence (1856). The site operates wonderfully, and the document is fully searchable (but still attributed … Continue reading →

Posted in news, usage guide | Tagged | 7 Comments

Soon out now: Prescription and Tradition in Language

Posted on August 30, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Some of you may remember the wonderful Prescriptivism Conference we held here at Leiden in June 2013: I’m very happy to be able to announce the publication of the collection of articles that resulted from it in only a few … Continue reading →

Posted in announcement | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The “new” like and non-native speakers of English

Posted on August 17, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Earlier this summer, Susan de Smit finished her BA thesis in English here at Leiden on the use of “the new like” by native as well as non-native speakers of English. If you are interested in the results of her … Continue reading →

Posted in announcement, usage features | Tagged | Leave a comment

Children in a world of prescriptivists

Posted on August 11, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Lonneke van Leest-Kootkar is one of the few students from my Testing Prescriptivism course who still has a second blogpost to publish. As you will see, she is also the mother of two small children: The inspiration for this blogpost … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment

English Today: just out

Posted on August 3, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Our latest contribution to English Today was written by Hielke Vriesendorp, a research master student at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics with an interest in prescriptivism. His paper is called “The Internet’s (New) Usage Problems”, and its aim is … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The next Prescriptivism conference: 21-23 June 2017

Posted on July 28, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Following the fourth conference on prescriptivism, which was held here at Leiden and co-organised by the Bridging the Unbridgeable project, the next one will be held at Park City, Utah, organised by Don Chapman from Brigham Young University. The theme for the … Continue reading →

Posted in announcement, events, news | Tagged | 3 Comments

“Use the active voice” – full stop

Posted on July 26, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Here is one example of the effect which following up on Strunk and White’s linguistic advice may have (see last week’s blog post on this): He spent a considerable portion of 1802 in Nellore collecting manuscripts, interviewing local Brahmins whom … Continue reading →

Posted in usage features, usage guide | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Strunk & White in our very own NRC-Handelsblad!

Posted on July 20, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

I don’t always read the Dutch writer Pia de Jong’s weekly column from the US in our paper, but last night, turning over the NRC, my eye was immediately drawn to the words Elements of Style: Strunk and White in NRC-Handelsblad, … Continue reading →

Posted in news | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Fingers crossed, please!

Posted on July 19, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

A few weeks ago, I submitted our HUGE database as a candidate for the Nederlandse Dataprijs. By mid-September, the jury will nominate three potential winners, and we hope to be among them. What is more, we would really like to be … Continue reading →

Posted in news | Leave a comment