From Abominable to Zealous

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the views on linguistic phenomena which have been criticised during the past century. The material used is six British usage guides published between 1906 and 2010 in which five controversial points of usage are selected for study. They are: between you and I (instead of me), split infinitives, the placement of only in a sentence, singular none, and different(ly) to/than (instead of from). The attitudes to these phenomena are analysed and compared. The analysis is focused on the language used by the authors and descriptive and prescriptive elements displayed in the guides. The results show that although there are differences between the usage guides, there is no clearly distinct trend in diachronic changes of attitudes within the studied period. However, some points of usage are approached with uniform attitudes by all the guides. The character of descriptive discourse does not seem to change in one direction across the century under study, but observable contrasts in recent discussions on the controversial issues of usage point to the possibility of a new wave of prescriptivism.