Bridging the Unbridgeable | A project on English usage guides

Time 2020-11-10 04:03:10

Web Name: Bridging the Unbridgeable | A project on English usage guides

WebSite: http://bridgingtheunbridgeable.com

ID:110784

Keywords:

Unbridgeable,project,Bridging,

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Eighteen months or so ago I wrote a post about John le Carré, because I d discovered that, like Kingsley Amis, Len Deighton and Ian McEwan, he too writes metalinguistic usage comments in his novels. My post then was about a comment on who/whom, this time the comment is about the use of got without have, which le Carré attributes to American usage. The quotation is from Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy (1974): I won t be quoted, George, the Minister warned in his lounging drawl. No minutes, no packdrill. I got voters to deal with. You don t. Nor does Oliver Lacon, do you, Oliver? He had also, thought Smiley, the American violence with auxiliary verbs: Yes, I m sorry about that, he said (p. 254).Is Smiley presented here as a prescriptivist? Note the double entendre in the second part of the quotation. I m reading all the Smiley novels in their proper order this year, so who knows what else I will find.My book, Describing Prescriptivism, has been out for nearly a year now, but I still run into references to usage guides in the literary literature I read that are too good not to make a note of. Or reread, as in the case of Zadie Smith s On Beauty (2006), which I first read well before the Bridging the Unbridegable project set off. The reference is to Fowler s Modern English Usage (p. 146), and the character discussed is said to have written a colossal, almost painfully detailed biograpny . The only biography of Fowler I m familiar with is the one by Jenny Mc Morris, called The Warden of English (2001). It is neither colossal nor painfully detailed, just an excellent book and a really good read to boot. So why the negative qualification? Is it Fowler s reputation as a stickler for correctness that Smith is unduly, in my opinion drawing on?The Bridging the Unbridgeable project may be officially closed, publications by its members continue to appear. Just now, my copy of Language Prescription: Values, Ideologies and Identity landed on our doormat, edited by Don Chapman and Jacob Rawlins. It includes papers by two of our former project members, Viktorija Kostadinova and Carmen Ebner. Congratulations to all! We are currently compiling a list of available monographs—such as Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade and Carol Percy’s 2017 Prescription and Tradition: Establishing Standards across Time and Space—and university courses that focus on linguistic prescriptivism (in English, but also in other languages). For that we need your help. Please leave us a comment below if you are aware of any publications or universities that offer courses on prescriptivism! We’d much appreciate it!Share this:TweetShare on TumblrEmailPrintLike this:Like Loading... Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 415 other followers Email Address: Privacy Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use. To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy

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