Category Archives: usage features

Spellergies, or the Rise of the Usage Problem

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Viktorija Kostadinova

Over the last couple of years I have been plagued with an unusual allergy, and to this day I have no idea what the cause might be. I have been tested for pollen, dust mites, particular types of food groups, … Continue reading →

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Gruesome Twosomes

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Morana Lukač

The above picture, in which persecution is confused for prosecution, was featured in a recent episode of a sitcom aired on Fox Extended, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”. To remind the reader about the distinction between the two, The Oxford … Continue reading →

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Tape your ducks in a row!

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Robin Straaijer

Sometimes you’ll find interesting explanations about why specific usages are problematic. This one caught my eye recently. It’s from the entry for duct tape in Bryan Garner’s Dictionary of Modern American Usage. Garner quotes a newspaper articles to explain why people … Continue reading →

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Donna and the Oxford Comma

Posted on December 20, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

During a British Academy lecture in 2011, David Crystal mentioned that language was rarely the object of a work of art. Well, here is a work of art created by Donna Piët for an exhibition called “Een Poging tot Nieuwe … Continue reading →

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Punctuation. In Political. Contexts.

Posted on November 8, 2012 by Cynthia Lange

There have been many interesting articles about language use related to the 2012 presidential election in the U.S. Some of my favorites include this recent one on the ‘mass-nounification of vote’ by Ben Zimmer and this one on the use … Continue reading →

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Forecasted?

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

I have a little gadget on the desktop of my laptop that tells me the current state of weather. Sometimes, my laptop is not connected to the internet, and the gadget looks like this: And each time I see it, … Continue reading →

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Settling the split infinitive differences

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Morana Lukač

Letters to the editor (LTE) sections in historical newspaper databases are rich sources for investigating the language pedants’ pet peeves.  The split infinitive seems to be among the prominent causes for their perpetual discussions. A 1904 article in the Washington … Continue reading →

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Strong verb questions

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

It seems we’re getting interested in strong verbs! Earlier on in this blog we reported on variation between snuck and sneaked, and on the use of went for gone, still quite common in eighteenth-century English but possibly on the increase … Continue reading →

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Have went?

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Ingrid Tieken

Several people in the attitudes survey I have been carrying out commented in their texts that they often hear have went and even see it written down sometimes. These people are all teachers, all in their late fifties, early sixties, … Continue reading →

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Dialects and prescriptivism

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Carmen Ebner

If you have ever visited Scotland, you are probably well acquainted with Scottish dialects or at least with what you have been able to decode from the torrents of words you are encountered with. Even though I am not an … Continue reading →

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