Category Archives: news

Prescriptivism at ICEHL-20

Posted on August 23, 2018 by

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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Three more project publications!

Posted on April 20, 2018 by

Just out: Standardising English: Norms and Margins in the History of the English Language, ed. by Linda Pillière, Wilfred Andrieu, Valérie Kerfelec and Diana Lewis (2018), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carmen Ebner, Concepts of correctness and acceptability in British English: … Continue reading →

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A centenary: The Elements of Style

Posted on April 12, 2018 by

Putting the final touches (I hope!) to my book on usage guides and usage problems,  I suddenly realised that William Strunk‘s famous Elements of Style is a hundred years old this year. Will anyone, publisher or critic or otherwise, pay attention to … Continue reading →

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Great to have a copy!

Posted on April 6, 2018 by

The HUGE database contains only a selection of usage guides. On the one hand, because there are so many of them, but on the other because it wasn’t always possible to lay our hands on a copy that could be … Continue reading →

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There/their/they’re confusion: something of all times

Posted on March 28, 2018 by

In discussing new usage problems discussed on the internet, Hylke Vriesendorp recently noted that there/their/they’re spellings were among the five most commented upon features listed in a Facebook group survey he carried out. Reading an early 17th-century text for the … Continue reading →

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Singular they and women

Posted on March 26, 2018 by

Back and forth to Berlin last week, for the Wild Publics conference organised by Theresa Heyd and Britta Schneider. There were two papers on prescriptivism, my own (Codification – prescription – prescriptivism: The authority of the lay-person) and one by … Continue reading →

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Live and Learn – our very own copy

Posted on March 6, 2018 by

Truly delightful to see that someone responded to my call in December last year to donate any spare usage guides to our project: many thanks indeed, Paul Nance for this wonderful gift, a copy of Live and Learn (anon., 35th … Continue reading →

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