Blog Archives

Hun hebben: a Dutch usage problem

Posted on September 22, 2011 by BtU Admin

About 18 months ago, a great uproar arose as a result of a discussion on television between Helen de Hoop, who has a chair in theoretical linguistics at the University of Nijmegen, and the then minister of education in the … Continue reading →

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Project events

Posted on September 21, 2011 by BtU Admin

The first presentation in the Bridging the Unbridgeable project was on 21 September, as a contribution to the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics Taalgebruiksseminar: Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, “Bridging the Unbridgeable”. Shortly after that, another paper on the topic of … Continue reading →

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Usage Guide Drive

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Robin Straaijer

Help us bridge the unbridgeable! For the project Bridging the Unbridgeable we are compiling a database of English usage guides and this is why we’re inviting you to contribute. Not nearly as many usage guides are available in electronic form … Continue reading →

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Prescriptivism in pragmatics?

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Robin Straaijer

Prescriptive rules tend to focus on syntactic constructions or on pronunciation, but what about some of the more pragmatic aspects of language? What kind of prescriptions primarily concern themselves with the pragmatics of an utterance, with its extralinguistic or situational context? Should … Continue reading →

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Conference on prescriptivism

Posted on September 20, 2011 by BtU Admin

The next conference on Prescriptivism will be held in Leiden, from 12 – 14 June 2013. It will be hosted by the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. Previous conferences took place in Sheffield, UK (2003), Ragusa, Sicily (2006) and Toronto … Continue reading →

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Attitudes to usage

Posted on September 19, 2011 by BtU Admin

A little while ago, a survey was held among alumni of the English department of the University of Leiden to find out about their attitudes to particular usage problems. The items surveyed can be found in David Crystal’s Encyclopedia of … Continue reading →

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“Guardians of the language”

Posted on September 18, 2011 by Ingrid Tieken

Who are the guardians of the English language, and why do they have so much authority? Why are their books so popular, and what are they expecting to gain by it all? These are some of the questions that Flor … Continue reading →

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Prescriptivism and how it all began

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Ingrid Tieken

In the English language, the rise of prescriptivism is closely linked with the publication of Robert Lowth’s Short Introduction to English Grammar, in 1762. One of the new features of this grammar was the appearance of detailed criticism of grammatical … Continue reading →

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Fowler into the OED

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Ingrid Tieken

In 2009, the first edition of Fowler’s Modern English Usage (1926) was reprinted by Oxford University Press, as part of their World Classics Series. In the introduction, David Crystal assesses Fowler’s status as a writer of this popular usage guide, as well as the book … Continue reading →

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Pocket Fowler

Posted on September 15, 2011 by BtU Admin

The pocket edition of Fowler’s Modern English Usage is available online. You can access it if you have access to the Oxford English Dictionary. On the OED homepage, click on Oxford Reference Online, then on English Language Reference, on Pocket Fowler’s Modern English Usage: … Continue reading →

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