Category Archives: usage features

Which online sources on language use do you consult?

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Morana Lukač

In 1995, Deborah Cameron made an observation which was years ahead of its time: “[The Internet] is an ideal arena for swapping linguistic trivia and debating matters of usage”. By now it is more than obvious that Cameron was right; … Continue reading →

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The more merry the merrier?

Posted on April 7, 2013 by xhlo

Over coffee today a Dutch friend of mine told me how surprised she had been when listening to a radio station the other day and hearing the phrase ‘… meer prominente plekken’. The context was a radio broadcast on the … Continue reading →

Posted in MA Leiden, usage features | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Whom on the way out?

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Maud

  In Chad Harbach’s novel The Art of Fielding (2011), one brief interaction between two characters is the scene of a linguistic inside joke. Pella Affenlight is arguing with her father, the President of Westish College as well as a … Continue reading →

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“The Alphabet of Errors”

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Inge Otto

Last week, I was fervently combing the earliest volumes of The English Journal, hoping to track down some articles about usage guides and problems for the database. After a while, just when I had figured that Volume 10, Issue 8 … Continue reading →

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Avoid saying ‘ketchup’

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Robin Straaijer

Looking through usage guides makes me notice prescriptions that haven´t quite ‘taken’. Especially older usage guides can be an amusing source of these. These prescriptions, in addition to prescribing current usage, often also give a prediction for future usage. A while ago, … Continue reading →

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The greengrocer’s apostrophe

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Anoeska Bronswijk

I came across an interesting generalisation concerning the use of the apostrophe with plurals on the website  of the Apostrophe Protection Society, quoted in Beal (2010): 3. Apostrophes are NEVER ever used to denote plurals! Common examples of such abuse (all seen in … Continue reading →

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Baker and the apostrophe

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Beatriz Medina Sánchez

Baker’s Reflections (1770) includes, among others, rules on the proper usage of the apostrophe (XXV). According to his remarks, this punctuation mark ought to be avoided when the writer intends to indicate a plural and he also encourages the audience … Continue reading →

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My amazement with amaze

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Carmen Ebner

Checking one’s facebook page in the morning is probably one of the first things done by any “normal” facebook addict. Well, having said that, I am one of them. So this morning, still sleepily taking a few sips of my … Continue reading →

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Focussing? Focusing?

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Ingrid Tieken

A while ago, I used to get phone calls from colleagues from all over the university with questions like how to write focussing, with single or double s. As a member of the English department I was expected to know these … Continue reading →

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Jafaican: “Ali G would understand it perfectly”

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Morana Lukač

In recent years, linguists across Europe have described new language varieties spoken by young people living in multicultural and multilingual communities of large cities. In Germany the variety is referred to as Kiezdeutsch (“neighbourhood German”), in Norway as kebabnorsk (“kebab … Continue reading →

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