Category Archives: MA Leiden

What is English Grammar?

Posted on May 12, 2014 by Ingrid Tieken

And this is Kate Taylor’s second blog post. Help her collect data by filling in her brief survey below! There are many different attitudes with regard to grammar; some people are born to learn grammar, some people work to achieve … Continue reading →

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“Raadstaalbingo”: Protest against political jargon by Dutch local councils

Posted on May 7, 2014 by Ingrid Tieken

This is a blog post written by Ratih Suwitra, another student from my MA course Testing Prescriptivism: Maybe it is a coincidence, maybe it is the linguistics courses rubbing off on me, but lately I have been noticing a few things … Continue reading →

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Pietersen and Prescriptivism (ctd.)

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Ingrid Tieken

In an earlier blogpost, Ash Navrady commented on how the star cricketer Kevin Pietersen was sacked by the English Cricket Board (ECB). Here follows another blogpost, in which Ash again focusses on an issue of prescriptivism, in this case the … Continue reading →

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The turbulent times of hopefully

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Ingrid Tieken

Below follows Anna Yuryeva’s first blog post. She’d be pleased with your comments. Two years ago, in April 2012, the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook published a tweet, which was followed by a virtual tsunami of criticism from grammar enthusiasts: “Hopefully, you … Continue reading →

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The Correct and Improving Major Byron F. Caws

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Ingrid Tieken

This is Richard Bond’s second blog post. The Story So Far – At Dr. Johnson’s House in London there is a plaque that reads “Castigavit et emendavit” (“he corrected and improved“) suggesting that these are H. W. Fowler’s words in recognition … Continue reading →

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Maar is het fout? (But is it wrong?)

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Ingrid Tieken

Here is Annemarie Walop‘s second blog post. While browsing on the internet a few weeks ago, I found a very interesting article on the website of Dutch quality newspaper De Volkskrant about the Dutch coordinating conjunction maar (“but”). The article is … Continue reading →

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Koffie’s vs koffies: how to find evidence of Dutch usage problems?

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Ingrid Tieken

Marten van der Meulen is the next student in my MA course Testing Prescriptivism to write a blog post: While recently investigating a piece on the greengrocer’s apostrophe, I read an earlier piece on the Bridging the Unbridgeable blog about … Continue reading →

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Effect an effect

Posted on April 4, 2014 by Ingrid Tieken

Here is Kate Taylor’s first blogpost (Kate is another of my MA course Testing Prescriptivism students). In my experience there are three levels of knowledge regarding the uses of the words effect and affect: imagine these three levels as the tiers … Continue reading →

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Don’t wanna, don’t havta, ain’t gonna!

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Ingrid Tieken

This is Cristina Cumpanasoiu’s first blog post, which she wrote as a student of my MA course Testing Prescriptivism: Slurring words together is common in literally every language. It’s kinda inevitable even for highly educated people. From poorly trained teenagers … Continue reading →

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Pietersen and Prescriptivism

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Ingrid Tieken

Here we have a blogpost by Ash Navrady, another student in my MA course Testing Prescriptivism: In the early months of 2014, the English Cricket Board made the controversial decision to ‘sack’ star batsman Kevin Pietersen in the aftermath of the disastrous Ashes … Continue reading →

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