Tag Archives: usage problems

A matter of etiquette as well

Posted on May 8, 2015 by Ingrid Tieken

If you thought that usage problems only occur in usage guides, you’re in for a big surprise: they are also discussed in a different genre altogether – etiquette books. This discovery was made by Paul Nance, one of the readers of … Continue reading →

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Final Mittins survey!

Posted on March 13, 2015 by BtU Admin

Here is the last set of the Mittins questions on which we welcome your feedback. This time the questions will be a little different, in that Mittins et al. asked their informants only to indicate the sentences’ acceptability for two … Continue reading →

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What kind of grammar nerd are you?

Posted on March 4, 2015 by Carmen Ebner

Today is National Grammar Day in the US and to celebrate this joyful occasion, Grammarly, a company providing a spell checker and grammar checker with the same title, has published a quiz: What kind of grammar nerd are you? It contains questions on … Continue reading →

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David vs Goliath: Oliver Kamm’s take on English usage

Posted on February 19, 2015 by Carmen Ebner

I have to admit that reading usage guides can get somewhat boring. Their authors, most of them prescriptivists and literally old-school, frequently use a similar set of usage problems discussing them in a similar manner and expressing similar attitudes. If … Continue reading →

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An 18th-century Garner?

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Ingrid Tieken

Within this project, we take Robert Baker’s Reflections on the English Language (1770) to be the first English usage guide. But was it? In the introduction to the Merriam Webster Dictionary of English Usage (1989: 8a) we are able to read … Continue reading →

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A parody within a parody?

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Viktorija Kostadinova

The latest prescriptive lesson on correct grammar doesn’t come from a usage guide or a grammar blog. It comes from “Weird Al” Yankovic’s latest album called “Mandatory Fun” in the form of a parody of Robin Thicke’s popular song “Blurred Lines”. … Continue reading →

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Wanted: Rhymes on Usage

Posted on May 19, 2014 by Inge Otto

nutritioneducationstore.com The Dinner Guests They seem to have taken on airs. They’re ever so rude with their stares. They get there quite late, There’s a hand in your plate, And they’re eating what’s not even theirs. O’Conner- Woe is I … Continue reading →

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Cross-cultural Prescriptivism

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Ingrid Tieken

For his paper at the Cambridge Usage (Guides) Symposium on 26 and 27 June, Robert Ilson would welcome input from the readers of this blog. Elsewhere, he published  what he called a “plaidoyer” for a cross-cultural study of prescriptivism, and in … Continue reading →

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Cambridge English Usage (Guides) Symposium

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Ingrid Tieken

Don’t miss it! On 26 and 27 June, we are organising a symposium at the English Faculty of the University of Cambridge on Usage Guides and Usage Problems. The registration fee is £30 only. Don’t wait too long to register, since space is … Continue reading →

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Jeremy Clarkson on car journalists and “generic he”

Posted on November 25, 2013 by Inge Otto

Jeremy Clarkson, whom many of us might know from the British television show TopGear, in his column of October 2013 worries about things other than cars. Right. What could that be? you might think. Well, from the outside, most of … Continue reading →

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