Most of the usage problems studied by Mittins et al. in the late 1960s (Attitudes to English Usage, 1970) have since increased in acceptability. This is what we tested by repeating their survey in the form of usage polls on this … Continue reading
In my experience, letters to the editor are not a frequent phenomenon in Dutch newspapers, at least not when they deal with language, and in any case not in the daily newspaper I read, NRC Handelsblad. A while ago I … Continue reading
I don’t always read the Dutch writer Pia de Jong’s weekly column from the US in our paper, but last night, turning over the NRC, my eye was immediately drawn to the words Elements of Style: Strunk and White in NRC-Handelsblad, … Continue reading
In their book Authority in Language, Milroy and Milroy write that English has a well-established “complaint tradition” and that such a tradition is “typically found in communities that have highly developed standard languages” (2012: 39). But how about Dutch? In contrast … Continue reading
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
Anticipating on his talk at the LUCL public event “Wie is de baas over de taal” (Who makes the rules in a language?) next Saturday, Geert Joris wrote in NRC-Handelsblad on Thursday that he dislikes Dunglish. He claims to be … Continue reading
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Thanks to Google for suggesting the right spelling if you happen – quite understandably – to search for “Bridging the Unbridgable”. No such help for typesetters or spelling correctors (quality newspaper NRC’s? or magazine L’Officiel’s?) missing the absence of the intermediate e … Continue reading
Bridging the Unbridgeable 