Category Archives: news

Exhibition opens today: Bryan Garner’s “Taming the Tongue”

We all know Bryan Garner as the author of Garner’s Modern American (now English) Usage (4th ed. 2016), but not everyone may be aware of the fact that he is also a collector of 18th and 19th-century books, grammars as … Continue reading

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Another major publication on prescriptivism

The Bridging the Unbridgeable project may be officially closed, publications by its members continue to appear. Just now, my copy of Language Prescription: Values, Ideologies and Identity landed on our doormat, edited by Don Chapman and Jacob Rawlins. It includes … Continue reading

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Lowth in the Economist

It doesn’t happen very often that Lowth (or indeed myself!) gets a mention in The Economist! Thanks, Alison, for letting us know. (Can anyone help me find the author of the piece? I’d like to tell him/her about my new … Continue reading

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Just out!

Out today, and open access: Of greengrocers, sports commentators, estate agents and television presenters: who’s in a usage guide and why, published in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. With thanks to Olivia Walsh for organising the symposium In the … Continue reading

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Literally out today

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Queen of Jetlags

Never thought I’d ever read anything by an influencer (a word not yet in the OED, but a very popular type of online presence these days): Noor de Groot’s Queen of Jetlags (2019). It is not that the book is … Continue reading

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The Grammarians – by Cathleen Schine

If you’re interested in prescriptivism, you might well want to read this recently published novel. It’s about twins who gradually grow apart, with the one thing binding them to the end being an old copy of a dictionary, probably  by … Continue reading

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Describing Prescriptivism: soon out now

Great news: my book will be out in two weeks time. 23 October is the official publication date. I can’t wait! To be published by Routledge, and copies can be pre-ordered there, in hardback and as an e-book.

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Just out: paper on flat adverbs by Morana Lukač and Ingrid Tieken

Congratulations, Sandra Jansen and Lucia Siebers, on the appearance of your book, and to Raymond Hickey in whose honour it was published! As for Morana and me, we’re very happy that it is out, and in my case, just in … Continue reading

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Caroline Taggart’s books in National Trust shops

Proofreading my forthcoming book Describing Prescriptivism, I came to p. 100 where I mention that Caroline Taggart’s Her Ladyship’s Guide to the Queeen’s English (2010), published by the The National Trust, used to lie for sale in country houses all over Britain. … Continue reading

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