Welcome to Episode 70 of Lexis. Raj and Dan talk to Dr Emma Humphries, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen’s University Belfast about all things prescriptivism.
We talk about:
What prescriptivism is and how it can de defined
Prescriptivism in French and English and the role of the Academy
The Your Wrong project that Emma is working on
Prescriptivism in popular culture and traditional guides, manuals and grammars
Why prescriptivism and descriptivism are not locked in a war and why it’s more than a goodies vs baddies, left vs right binary
The kinds of arguments prescriptivists put forward
Why complaints about language are often - but not always - proxies for complaints about people
How to convert a prescriptivist
How to get involved in the Your Wrong project
Your Wrong website: https://yourwrong.co.uk/
Submit your examples: https://yourwrong.co.uk/submit
Contact Emma: popularprescriptivism@gmail.com
Emma’s Queen’s University page: https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/emma-humphries
Emma’s favourite book about language: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/language-myths-laurie-bauer/762943?ean=9780140260236
Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Raj Rana
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys