Are you someone who winces at the word “irregardless” or the admonition to “Drive safe”? Do you find it hard to believe someone who tells you, “I was literally climbing the walls”? Do you wish everyone would use the Oxford comma in lists of three items? If so, this lively seminar on language is for you.
From her perspective as a historian of the English language, linguist Anne Curzan examines some of the most common peeves in grammar, including “between you and I,” the new(ish) verbs “to impact” and “to verse,” the pronoun “they” as a singular, the use of “that” for “who” in reference to people, dangling modifiers, and the use of “less” for “fewer.”
How long have speakers been doing this? Should we accept it in speech? In formal writing? When does a “grammatical error” stop being an error? Curzan explains how she handles these usage questions as a former member of the American Heritage Dictionary Usage panel and as an academic writer and copy editor.
You’ll leave this seminar with a heightened awareness of grammatical changes afoot in the language and new online tools for exploring contested points in English usage.
Curzan is the Geneva Smitherman Collegiate Professor of English, Linguistics, and Education and Dean of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts at the University of Michigan.
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