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This is the title of an article by John Honey, published in 1995 in English Today. In the article Honey makes a plea for “agree[ing] upon [a] reasonable form of prescriptivism”, discussing as a case study the occurrence of pronoun … Continue reading
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In a very interesting paper called “BBC Style: A look at the style guides and language of BBC Radio News bulletins”, Anya Luscombe, from Roosevelt Academy, Middelburg (The Netherlands), analyses the views on a number of top “pet hates” among … Continue reading
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On the subject of what is called singular they (Everyone has their off-days) Mittins et al. write that Jane Austen “uniformly employs this usage”. The authors refer to S.A. Leonard’s Doctrine of Correctness in English Usage (1929) here, where we … Continue reading
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We would very much like to know whether readers consider the sentence in the title to this post problematic or not. It is of course – as aficionados will immediately recognise – from the Startrek trailer, and the construction in question is … Continue reading
Under the first sense for heterogenous, the OED writes: A less correct form of heterogeneous adj. (In mod. use prob. repr. the pronunc. /hɛtəˈrɒdʒɪnəs/ given by some speakers to heterogeneous: cf. homogenous adj. (homogeneous adj. ¶).) Labelling the word as … Continue reading
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In David Crystal’s Encyclopedia of the English Language (p. 196), Fowler is portrayed in his swimsuit, and so he is in the OxfordWords blog “From telegraphese to texting: one hundred years of the Concise Oxford Dictionary“. I’ve always wondered why: after all, … Continue reading
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The Bishop’s Grammar (OUP, 2011) was reviewed in last week’s Times Literary Supplement. One of the aims of my book was to show that Robert Lowth is usually depicted as an icon of prescriptivism, and also that his Short Introduction to English … Continue reading
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Honey’s book, published in 1997, is a controversial publication, to put it mildly. We are looking for reviews of the book in addition to the ones by Peter Trudgill, Roy Harris and Paul Bennett. A rejoinder to Trudgill’s review appeared … Continue reading
Kate Wild, one of our contributors, has kindly lent us two copies of her usage guides: anon., A Dictionary of Daily Blunders. London: Whittaker & Co (1880) anon. Many Mistakes Mended. New York: N. Tibbals & Sons (1886). The first of this … Continue reading
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In a park in Ealing, London (was it Ealing Common?) we came upon this notice: The arrival and that of their descendant’s have changed the face of Ealing and England forever. If you look carefully, someone tried to erase the … Continue reading
Bridging the Unbridgeable 