In the course of the next few weeks, three PhD positions will be advertised for this research project. So keep an eye out for more information, on this blog as well as on the University of Leiden Centre for Linguistics … Continue reading
This is a suggestion made by John Honey in Language is Power (1997:166-168). Estuary English Honey describes as being typically characterised by t-glottaling and l-vocalisation (though there are many other characteristics of Estuary English as well). Already in 1989 he … Continue reading
In an earlier post, we mentioned our quest for reviews of John Honey’s Language is Power, first published in 1997 by Faber and Faber. Several have come up, including a review by Jean Aitchison in the Sunday Times of 14 … Continue reading
We have just published the sixth usage poll, which we hope you will have time to complete during the upcoming Christmas break. You will find it under the tab Usage polls just under the banner of this blog. We’re temporarily … Continue reading
During the past few days, I received emails (from the UK) that contained the following phrases: An Out-of-Office reply: Please note I work Monday – Wednesday’s only Please supply: Passengers full name (as stated on passport); Passengers date of birth; Passport number … Continue reading
“Flat Adverbs” are defined by the OED as follows: “Not distinguished by a characteristic ending, as an adverb which has the same form as an adjective or substantive, or a substantive used as an adjective” (OED, s.v. flat, adj., adv. … Continue reading
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If today’s pet linguistic hates for BBC journalists and news writers are try and (for try to), concede defeat/victory, gone missing and Americanisms (e.g. turning nouns into verbs and attaching prepositions to verbs: hospitalize, meet with) (see elsewhere in this blog), different ones are listed in Robert Burchfield’s … Continue reading
At the 17th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, one of the plenary papers will be on prescriptivism. The speaker is Anne Curzan, from the University of Michigan, and her paper will be called “Prescriptivism: More Than Descriptivism’s Foil”. The … Continue reading
When setting out to fill in our fourth language poll, one of the readers of this blog found she wanted to leave all the boxes blank for the ‘less’ and ‘try and’ questions, but that the poll wouldn’t allow that. … Continue reading
Let us know what you think about these constructions by filling in our fourth usage poll. You’ll find the poll under the button Usage polls, immediately below the banner of this blog.
Bridging the Unbridgeable 