Category Archives: Uncategorized

Online sources on English usage advice

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Morana Lukač

Within our project, we have been looking at the history of printed usage guides and commenting on their growing number. Online sources on usage, however, have also been gaining prominence. With the number of websites offering usage advice, we’d like to … Continue reading →

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What’s the fuss about the controversial SPaG test?

Posted on November 5, 2015 by Carmen Ebner

The 2016 version of the Key Stage 2 Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar test, also known as SPaG test, has made the headlines in the UK again. Michael Rosen has often voiced his concerns about the test publically and did so again … Continue reading →

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And then there were 4

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Carmen Ebner

After Grammar Girl’s Top 10 Grammar Myths in 2010 and the Guardian’s 10 grammar rules you can forget three years later, linguist and author Arika Okrent joins the usage problem shortlisting club with her 4 Fake Grammar Rules You Don’t … Continue reading →

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Migrants: the language crisis

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Morana Lukač

Our blog posts are almost always devoted to usage guides, their respective authors, usage problems, and our readers’ attitudes towards usage. Sometimes, however, these topics touch on more general social debates. In popular and scholarly publications on English usage from … Continue reading →

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“A cool tool!”

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Ingrid Tieken

This was the verdict of one of the participants in our workshop Hands on HUGE at the SLE conference at Leiden, last week.  And another wanted to know if something similar was available for French too. Well no, I replied, HUGE … Continue reading →

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Sitcoms and language humour

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Viktorija Kostadinova

Those who are familiar with Frasier would certainly recall that language was one of the things Frasier and Niles were nitpicky about. In one episode, Frasier manages to irritate a caller by commenting on his inappropriate use of literally: “I’m sorry Doug, … Continue reading →

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Gove on grammar, again

Posted on June 22, 2015 by Carmen Ebner

The former Education Secretary Michael Gove, who has been appointed Lord Chancellor and Secretary of Justice, has been criticised for ‘patronising’ civil servants with his take on grammar. As an English graduate from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, Gove is known not … Continue reading →

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Literally, too big a fuss about nothing – the latest English Today interactive feature

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Viktorija Kostadinova

The sixth installment in the Bridging the Unbridgeable series of interactive features was published in the June 2015 issue of the English Today journal. In this feature, we ask readers to contribute to investigating the issue of the non-literal, intensifier use of … Continue reading →

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Fragment (consider revising)

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Viktorija Kostadinova

We’ve all been there. You are writing (what you think is) a perfectly good sentence in a Word document when, suddenly, the MS Word grammar checker tells you that you should consider revising the ‘fragment’, because something is wrong. Very … Continue reading →

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Usage poll #10

Posted on March 3, 2015 by BtU Admin

And here is another usage poll, with sentences 46-50 from Mittins et al. (only one more to go!). Remember that multiple answers are allowed. And feel free to leave comments on the sentences as well. Enjoy!     

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