Category Archives: usage features

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

Posted on August 14, 2019 by

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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An anachronism in The Mitford Murders

Posted on July 11, 2019 by

Being a fan of Nancy Mitford, and having read the Mitford sisters’ entire correspondence  (ed. Mosley 2007) as well as their biography by Mary Lovell (2001), I was naturally curious about The Mitford Murders by Jessica Fellowes, the more so since … Continue reading →

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Describing Prescriptivism

Posted on April 25, 2019 by

Soon to appear (expected publication date: some time in September):  

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More complete?

Posted on April 21, 2019 by

In 2007, The Dutch Taaladviesdienst (a language advice service run by Genootschap Onze Taal)  published Taal top 100, a collection of the 100 most popular usage problems in Dutch, in the fields of spelling, grammar, lexis , punctuation and style. … Continue reading →

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These ones, those ones

Posted on April 19, 2019 by

Just finished my article “Of greengrocers, sports commentators, estate agents and television presenters: Who’s in a usage guide and why” for a special issue with papers from Liv Walsh’s workshop In the Shadow of the Standard September last in Nottingham. … Continue reading →

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British or American – or doesn’t it matter?

Posted on October 28, 2018 by

I’d never have thought I would read a Young Adult novel, but I did, and here is why. At ICEHL-20, two months ago in Edinburgh, Jane Hodson presented a paper in the course of which she referred to The Knife of … Continue reading →

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Well, up to a point, Lord Copper!

Posted on July 27, 2018 by

I can’t even read read a Raymond Chandler novel without a pencil, I told Carol Percy when she was interviewing me for the Journal of English Linguistics (to appear in December this year). It is the fate of the linguist, … Continue reading →

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Hen and hun in Dutch. Or: How to Make a Usage Problem Go Away

Posted on July 25, 2018 by

This is Amos van Baalen’s second blogpost for last semester’s MA course Non-Standard English: Modern Dutch technically does not have a case system anymore. Remnants of this system occur in many set expressions, such as te allen tijde “at all … Continue reading →

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Hisself: should we allow it or not?

Posted on April 30, 2018 by

And here is another blogpost from one of my MA students. Maha Khalil would like to know why the non-standard reflexive pronoun hisself remains non-standard today. The blogpost was inspired …  … by an article published by the Scottish writer … Continue reading →

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I come, I seen, I chased him up the street

Posted on April 10, 2018 by

And here is Amos van Baalen’s first blogpost. And if you are a native speaker of Australian or British English, do take the time to contribute to his research by filling in the survey below. It won’t take a lot … Continue reading →

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