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Category Archives: usage features
Hypercorrect whom
It has been a recurring topic on this blog, but whom definitely seems to be on the way out. I’m in the middle of reading a pile of third-year essays, and have already come across two instances of hypercorrect whom this … Continue reading
The HRT a new usage problem?
Is the so-called High Rise Terminal, HRT for short and also called Upspeak, developing into a new usage problem? Robert Ilson, in an article in The English Language Today (1985), mentions three criteria that define linguistic features as potential usage … Continue reading
Posted in usage features
Tagged HighRising Terminal, HRT, Ian McEwan, NRC, Pia de Jong, Valleyspeak
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What do you think about van?
This is Cassandra Nijon’s first blog post. It is actually her second, but I’m still in the process of editing the earlier one, so have a little patience! This one jumps the queue because she’d like to have your feedback. … Continue reading
Are Americanisms taking over the British Language?
Below follows Jan van den Berg’s first blogpost: “American influence is busily eroding a valuable and once firm distinction in British speech and writing” (Amis 1997: 11). This is a quotation from Kingsley Amis’s usage guide The King’s English (1997). As we … Continue reading
Posted in usage features, usage guide
Tagged Americanisms, fowler, Kingsley Amis, MA at Leiden
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Pietersen and Prescriptivism (ctd.)
In an earlier blogpost, Ash Navrady commented on how the star cricketer Kevin Pietersen was sacked by the English Cricket Board (ECB). Here follows another blogpost, in which Ash again focusses on an issue of prescriptivism, in this case the … Continue reading
The turbulent times of hopefully
Below follows Anna Yuryeva’s first blog post. She’d be pleased with your comments. Two years ago, in April 2012, the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook published a tweet, which was followed by a virtual tsunami of criticism from grammar enthusiasts: “Hopefully, you … Continue reading
Maar is het fout? (But is it wrong?)
Here is Annemarie Walop‘s second blog post. While browsing on the internet a few weeks ago, I found a very interesting article on the website of Dutch quality newspaper De Volkskrant about the Dutch coordinating conjunction maar (“but”). The article is … Continue reading
Yagoda’s Language Madness
March Madness describes a very American phenomenon: the NCAA college basketball tournament. In this tournament college teams compete against each other and by winning move on to the next round. This process is often visualised in so-called brackets, which apparently … Continue reading
Posted in polls and surveys, usage features
Tagged Ben Yagoda, language madness, pet peeves, polls, sins against language
1 Comment
Koffie’s vs koffies: how to find evidence of Dutch usage problems?
Marten van der Meulen is the next student in my MA course Testing Prescriptivism to write a blog post: While recently investigating a piece on the greengrocer’s apostrophe, I read an earlier piece on the Bridging the Unbridgeable blog about … Continue reading
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