Category Archives: usage guide

“Basically … rather good”

Posted on July 13, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Just decided to check up on the reception of Simon Heffer’s new (well, two years old by now) usage guide called Simply English, and found that Ben East, in The Guardian, described it as “basically … rather good”.  Interesting, in view … Continue reading →

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Write it Right: A very pedantic usage guide

Posted on June 10, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Here is Madeleine Ibes’s second blog post: Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) was an American short story author, journalist and satirist who authored books like The Devil’s Dictionary (1906/1909), which contained definitions like this one for grammar: “A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for … Continue reading →

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And the winner is …

Posted on May 19, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

This morning, I’ve been going through the HUGE database to find out which of the 123 usage problems was treated most by the usage guides (77 in all). Does anyone want to make a guess?    

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Pinker’s Sense of Style translated into Dutch

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Yesterday, I accidentally came across the translation into Dutch of Pinker’s The Sense of Style in a bookshop here in The Hague. Amazing, an English style-cum-usage guide translated into Dutch. A much earlier similar attempt, the translation of Lynne Truss’s Eats Shoots … Continue reading →

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The Comma Queen is back

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Carmen Ebner

Mary Norris, copy-editor and author of the usage guide Between you & me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, shares her knowledge on language use in a series of videos on The New Yorker.   Now in season two, the Comma Queen … Continue reading →

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Continuing the usage game

Posted on February 22, 2016 by Carmen Ebner

On our blog, we often report on current developments in the usage debate, bits and pieces of our research findings and also new publications of usage guides. Being a true book addict, I would like to share two of the … Continue reading →

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Of pedants, mavens, sticklers and …

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

… only-snoopers! This is a term adopted by Sir Ernest Gowers in his discussion of the placement of only in Plain Words, another old chestnut in the usage guide tradition. The term reminds me of which-hunting, something pedants and other prescriptivists are renowned … Continue reading →

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Happy birthday, Janet Whitcut!

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Ingrid Tieken

Though none of us in the Bridging the Unbridgeable project has ever met Janet Whitcut, her work is nevertheless very important to us. Janet is the author, together with Sidney Greenbaum, of The Longman Guide to English Usage (1988). Jointly, they … Continue reading →

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Sexy usage advice

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Ingrid Tieken

Comma Sutra proved my husband’s favourite St Nicholas present this year. Good for me, because I was the one who bought it for him. The reason I did is that it neatly combines our respective research interests – mine in usage … Continue reading →

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Hoary witticisms and other prescriptivist jokes

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Ingrid Tieken

In going through our usage guides, we occasionally come across linguistic jokes – not terribly funny, admittedly, but they apparently appeal to writers on usage. And they have done so from the earliest days of the usage guide tradition onwards, … Continue reading →

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