Category Archives: polls and surveys

Our latest interactive feature in English Today: Usage advice online

Posted on May 2, 2016 by Morana Lukač

When in doubt about questions of usage, I do as I suppose most other people do as well: I google it. That is only, however, the starting point of most internet searches. What I wanted to find out when I … Continue reading →

Posted in announcement, polls and surveys, technology | Tagged | 2 Comments

A problem with soaring acceptance rates

Posted on May 2, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Below follows Lingyun Lai’s first blogpost: Since Mittins et al., in their book Attitudes to English usage, reported an overall acceptability of 50 English usage items in 1970, no systematic replication research had been conducted, until, from 2011 onwards, the Bridging … Continue reading →

Posted in MA Leiden, polls and surveys | Tagged | 2 Comments

Has grammar become hip?

Posted on April 21, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Here is Hielke Vriesendorp’s first blog post: Whilst Google-searching for online usage advice, I expected to find  many different sorts of websites, but I can’t say I expected usage advice on lifestyle blogs, which were otherwise giving advice on relationships, motherhood, … Continue reading →

Posted in MA Leiden, polls and surveys | 4 Comments

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

Splitting only

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

What do try and, only, split infinitives and dangling participles have in common? This is a question we asked a few weeks ago, and I promised to let you know as soon as we found out. Here, then, is a partial answer … Continue reading →

Posted in polls and surveys, usage features | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Blaming the media?

Posted on February 4, 2016 by Carmen Ebner

As part of our interactive feature series in English Today, the latest and ninth article has been published today in which I discuss attitudes towards the role of the media in language variation and change. In my online questionnaire, I asked informants … Continue reading →

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Try and, only, split infinitives, dangling participles

Posted on January 27, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

(If this is your first time on this blog: please fill in the acceptability survey below. Thank you!) What do these features have in common? That is something Carmen Ebner and I are going to figure out in the article we … Continue reading →

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Key player media?

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Carmen Ebner

Since I am particularly interested in the media’s role in the later stages of the standardisation process of English, I would like to invite you to participate in a brief survey which also serves as a starting point for a … Continue reading →

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What are your thoughts on the Microsoft grammar and style checker?

Posted on November 23, 2015 by Viktorija Kostadinova

In the past two years, we’ve been publishing a series of interactive features in the journal English Today as a way to engage more readers in issues of interest to our research project. (Past features can also be found on … Continue reading →

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We need YOU …

Posted on July 21, 2015 by Ingrid Tieken

… to help us get enough data by filling in the survey on flat adverbs (as in go slow rather than slowly). Our target is to have over 100 respondents, and we are not nearly half way there. So please fill in … Continue reading →

Posted in news, polls and surveys | Tagged , | 2 Comments