Category Archives: news

A never-ending story

Posted on March 21, 2014 by Carmen Ebner

Are ‘grammar Nazis’ ruining the English language? This is a question you might have already asked yourself as a reader of this blog. Now the question has been posed to Geoffrey Pullum, Professor of General Linguistics at the University of … Continue reading →

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Congratulations, Rebecca Gowers …

Posted on March 17, 2014 by Ingrid Tieken

… on the appearance of your revised and updated edition of Plain Words! We are delighted to have been given a copy, and look forward to reading it.

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Fixing English – soon to be published

Posted on February 23, 2014 by Ingrid Tieken

Exciting news: we have just heard that a new book on prescriptivism is soon to be published (May): Anne Curzan’s Fixing English. Read its description on CUP’s website: Over the past 300 years, attempts have been made to prescribe how we … Continue reading →

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Some words are(n’t) better than others

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Morana Lukač

Michael Proffitt, the new Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, was recently interviewed by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour (see video here) commenting on the place of the largest English dictionary in the modern age. Although the O.E.D. was one of … Continue reading →

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update About page

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Robin Straaijer

It was long overdue, but we’ve updated the About page. It now also features our new project assistent Inge Otto, whose post you will have already seen come by if you regularly visit this site. Inge joined the project in September … Continue reading →

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Symposium on early American English usage guides

Posted on January 16, 2014 by Ingrid Tieken

On 13 February 2014, the Bridging the Unbridgeable project organises a one-day symposium called “English Usage Guides: The Early American Tradition”. Speakers will be Ulrich Busse (University of Halle, Germany), Viktorija Kostadinova and Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (both from the … Continue reading →

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Just out!

Posted on November 28, 2013 by Ingrid Tieken

This is how Clive Upton, editor of English Today, announces the start of our new regular feature in English Today. We are very happy with the opportunity offered to us by the editors of English Today, and hope to receive … Continue reading →

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Mini-exhibition on Sir Ernest Gowers

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Ingrid Tieken

There have been various posts in this blog on Sir Ernest Gowers (1880-1966), one of our major usage guide writers, so high time for a mini-exhibition showing some of our finds, as well as illustrating his legacy as the writer … Continue reading →

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A few tips from the editor

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Morana Lukač

This October, Joy Burrough, an authors’ editor, gave a talk entitled ‘An Introduction to Editing’ to the humanities PhD students at Leiden University. Aside from describing the editing process, Joy answered some specific questions regarding common issues researchers come across … Continue reading →

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BBC Radio 4: on now

Posted on October 23, 2013 by BtU Admin

How topical our project is! In a few moments the following feature will appear on air: Harry Ritchie is a writer and former literary editor of the Sunday Times. His latest book, English for the Natives, outlines the rules and … Continue reading →

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