Category Archives: news

Grammar obsessions

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Here is an excellent linguist’s view (structural ambiguity intended) on the controversial UK SPaG test that Carmen Ebner wrote about on this blog a short while ago. Three days ago, Jane Hodson from the University of Sheffield published an online … Continue reading →

Posted in news, Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment

English Language Day 2016

Posted on April 23, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Today is English Language Day, and yesterday we had a wondeful sneak preview of it with Harry Ritchie’s talk Ashamed of your English?, followed by more talk on English prescriptivism during lunch afterwards. Last year’s post to commemorate the day … Continue reading →

Posted in news | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Comma Queen is back

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Carmen Ebner

Mary Norris, copy-editor and author of the usage guide Between you & me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, shares her knowledge on language use in a series of videos on The New Yorker.   Now in season two, the Comma Queen … Continue reading →

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

Ashamed of your English?

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

If you are, and even if you are not, you might like to attend our monthly lunch lecture on Friday 22 April. Our speaker this time will be Harry Ritchie, the author of English for the Natives (2013). We’re delighted … Continue reading →

More Galleries | Tagged | Leave a comment

Introvert pedants?

Posted on March 29, 2016 by Carmen Ebner

Robin Queen and Julie Boland, both from the University of Michigan, recently conducted a study on attitudes towards spelling variation, which has now been picked up by The Guardian. What they call “typos” and “grammos” are errors everyone has come across when using the internet … Continue reading →

Posted in news, polls and surveys, usage features | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Horrible Words

Posted on March 29, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

is the title of Rebecca Gowers’s new book, subtitled “A Guide to the Misuse of English”. It is coming out this Thursday, but for those of you who can’t wait, read all about it in The Guardian Online. (With thanks to … Continue reading →

Posted in news | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Continuing the usage game

Posted on February 22, 2016 by Carmen Ebner

On our blog, we often report on current developments in the usage debate, bits and pieces of our research findings and also new publications of usage guides. Being a true book addict, I would like to share two of the … Continue reading →

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

Happy birthday, Janet Whitcut!

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Though none of us in the Bridging the Unbridgeable project has ever met Janet Whitcut, her work is nevertheless very important to us. Janet is the author, together with Sidney Greenbaum, of The Longman Guide to English Usage (1988). Jointly, they … Continue reading →

Posted in news, usage guide | Tagged | 3 Comments

Ingrid Tieken interviewed by Paul Brians

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Ingrid Tieken

Last week, Paul Brians interviewed Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade about her work in the Bridging the Unbridgeable project and about the book she is writing on usage guides as a text type. A podcast of the interview was published on … Continue reading →

Posted in news | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Happy birthday, Paul Brians!

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Ingrid Tieken

Another one of our usage guide writer’s birthdays! Paul Brians is the author of Common Errors in English Usage, published in 2003, one of the usage guides in our HUGE database. Paul also has a website, a blog, a daily calendar (for … Continue reading →

Posted in biography, news | 2 Comments