Author Archives: Ingrid Tieken

Prescriptivism at ICEHL-20

Posted on August 23, 2018

Great news: Prescriptivism has a separate section at next week’s ICEHL-20 in Edinburgh, with five papers no less. Have a look at the book of abstracts if you’re interested. Advertisements

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Greengrocers, footballers, sports commentators, estate agents, television presenters

Posted on August 13, 2018

We’ve written about the greengrocer’s apostrophe on this blog before, but what about these other people, footballers (known for their use of the perfect when other people would use the past tense in English instead), sports commentators (who seem to … Continue reading →

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Well, up to a point, Lord Copper!

Posted on July 27, 2018

I can’t even read read a Raymond Chandler novel without a pencil, I told Carol Percy when she was interviewing me for the Journal of English Linguistics (to appear in December this year). It is the fate of the linguist, … Continue reading →

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Hen and hun in Dutch. Or: How to Make a Usage Problem Go Away

Posted on July 25, 2018

This is Amos van Baalen’s second blogpost for last semester’s MA course Non-Standard English: Modern Dutch technically does not have a case system anymore. Remnants of this system occur in many set expressions, such as te allen tijde “at all … Continue reading →

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I should of used have…

Posted on July 24, 2018

This is Lizi Richards’ second blog post for the MA course Non-standard English: While browsing through my Twitter feed a few weeks ago, the following tweet appeared in my feed: The forty responses, forty-two retweets and two hundred and forty-nine … Continue reading →

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Febuary, febry

Posted on June 17, 2018

‘Last February? Last February? Oh yes, I was here last February.’ He [the janitor]  pronounced it exactly as spelled.’  (p. 236) The passage is from Raymond Chandler‘s novel The Little Sister (1949). When I came across this metalinguistic comment, I was wondering … Continue reading →

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Guess what?! You don’t just speak a dialect; you’re also illiterate and uneducated!

Posted on May 1, 2018

And here is Ilse Stolte’s second blogpost, on a topic related to the first one she wrote about: For the course on Non-Standard English and prescriptivism, I spend a great deal of time reading through entries of usage guides in … Continue reading →

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