David Crystal's 50 Questions About English Usage Pocket Editions - David Crystal [2021, PDF]

Contents

Acknowledgements and Thanks vii
Why I wrote this book vii
A: Words and idioms 1
1 How many words are there in the English Language? 2
2 How many new words come into English every year? 4
3 Why is English vocabulary so varied? 6
4 Why do I hear two forms used in a sentence like
Talk among(st) yourselves? 8
5 What’s the difference between a cup and a mug? 10
6 Why do people say phonetic and grammatical and not
phonetical and grammatic? 12
7 I hear people adding -ish to words a lot. What does it mean? 14
8 What should we call the meal in the middle of the day:
lunch or dinner? 16
9 Why is everyone these days saying you’re welcome in
response to thanks? 18
10 What does it mean when someone adds at all at
the end of a question? 20
11 Why do English speakers sometimes use pidgin English,
as in long time no see? 22
12 Is it all right to say she looks well in a black dress rather
than looks good? 24
13 Why do people say the same thing twice, as in it takes what it takes? 26
14 What is happening in new expressions like well good? 28
B: Grammar 30
15 Can a be used before an uncountable noun? 31
16 Why is the article dropped before some nouns, as in
look what baby’s doing? 33
17 Why do some teachers tell me I shouldn’t begin a
sentence with and? 35
18 Why do we say I am, am I and I’m not, but aren’t I
instead of amn’t I? 37
19 Are the conjunctions because, since, as and for interchangeable? 39
20 Why do we see the past tense of some verbs spelled in two
ways, such as burned and burnt? 41
21 Why is go being used these days instead of say in
reporting speech? 43
22 I’ve just seen a film called Marley and Me. Shouldn’t it be
Marley and I? 45
23 Why do people say whatever on its own? 47
24 What will be the result? or What will the result be?
Which should I use? 49
Contents vvi Contents
25 I keep coming across Team GB. Shouldn’t it be the GB Team? 51
26 Why is went the past tense of go? (And was the past
of am and is?) 53
27 Is there a difference between I liked the story which you
told and ...that you told? 55
28 Is the third person singular -s going to disappear? 57
29 Why is a possessive sometimes used before an -ing form,
and sometimes not? 59
C: Pronunciation 61
30 Where did RP (Received Pronunciation) come from? 62
31 Have English accents changed in Britain in recent years? 64
32 What is this ‘Estuary English’ that I read about? 66
33 Why do some people say afternoon and some say afternoon? 68
34 Why do people drop the final -g when they say good morning? 70
35 Why am I hearing so many high rising tones on statements
these days? 72
D: Spelling and punctuation 74
36 Why is English spelling so irregular? 75
37 Why is encyclopaedia sometimes spelled encyclopedia? 77
38 Why do we see a verb sometimes spelled with -ise and
sometimes with -ize? 79
39 Should I write words with accents, like cliché and naïve? 81
40 Should I write Past Perfect or past perfect (and for other
names of tenses)? 83
41 Why is there so much variation in the use of the apostrophe? 85
42 I’ve seen both red, white and blue and red, white, and blue.
Which should I use? 87
43 Can I use an exclamation mark along with a question mark
to add emphasis to a question, as in What?! or What!? 89
44 Are hyphens going out of fashion? 91
E: Genres 93
45 Why is Shakespeare difficult to read? 94
46 How has English changed in the last 400 years? 96
47 Has internet technology changed English? 98
48 Will text messaging harm learners’ English? 100
49 Why are transcripts of spoken language so difficult to read? 102
50 Can I use grammar to identify online phishing? 104
Index 106