Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #18
Bin-drinks/I Might A neighbour recently asked if we'd like to meet for "bin-drinks" over the Christmas period. Isn't that a great new...
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ONE HAND CLAPPING
Brandon Robshaw: Christmas usage
Murie Xmas So, here we are in December again. It is time, if one hasn't done so already, to send Xmas cards, buy an Xmas tree, do Xmas...
Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #17
black is Black In October, for Black History Month, the historian David Olusoga did a series of articles for The Times about the black...
Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #16
Over and Under A friend of mine, Mr David Alterman, has recently been enquiring about the words "over" and "under" and the range of words...
Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #15
Cynosure Long-term readers of my blog will know that I object to over-scholarised notes in contemporary editions of classic literary...
Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #14
Bring Me Sunshine Earlier this year, the pub choir I sing in rehearsed the old Morecambe and Wise number "Bring me Sunshine". For those...
Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #13
Hate You can't spend two minutes on Twitter these days without coming across somebody accusing somebody else of "hate" towards some group...
Sue Hann: "Master of Light"
Master of Light Not long after my final round of fertility treatment fails, we go to see an exhibition at the National Gallery. I don't...
Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #12
Referenda or Referendums Vanessa Feltz was doing a piece about the possibility of another Scottish referendum on independence, and she...
Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #11
The Death of Elision Just watching Pointless, and an answer to one of the questions was Westminster Abbey. All three people who said it –...
Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #10
"Would have liked to have done..." I've just finished reading Penelope Fitzgerald's novel The Bookshop. It's very good indeed and also...
Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #9
Bullet-headed Recently I have been re-reading one of my old William books, William – In Trouble (and, by the way, they are called William...
Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #8
Them and us The other day I was having a conversation with my niece-in-law, if that's a word, and she was talking about applying for a...
Carolann Samuels on a walk in the woods
The Forest Breathes Beneath Me and Around Me There is birdsong; there's always birdsong. And there are other sounds, but below the level...
Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #7
Irregardless I note that the Merrion-Webster dictionary has included the word "irregardless" in its latest edition, defining it as a...
Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #6
Line-up or line up? Still feeling pleased (and relieved) that Tottenham Hotspur had managed to beat Arsenal at White Hart Lane, I was...
Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #5
Rambunctious? Or rumbustious? I mark a lot of assignments online for the Open University; and today, when marking a creative writing...
Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #4
Unchartered A good friend of mine – take a bow, Mr Bruce Dessau – has forwarded to me this snippet from the Visit Kent website: "The...
Sayantani Dasgupta on how not to write about India
Tigers, Snakes and Monkey-brains: how to write about India if you're a tourist 1. Prepare for your trip by watching Indiana Jones & the...
Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #3
Poignant-watch Here's David Aaronovitch, in a book review in yesterday's Times: "This question [of why people dogmatically stick to...
Brandon Robshaw on the burqa
A visiting extra-terrestrial would find it noteworthy that in public, in all societies, humans are allowed to cover their bodies, limbs...
Sayantani Dasgupta on Bollywood
On a late November evening in Moscow, Idaho, my boyfriend and I are on our way to dinner. I have requested that it be at our local Thai...
Anwen Kya Hayward on current events
There's a common conception that "neutrality" or silence around issues like Black Lives Matter is apolitical. That in failing to take a...
Brandon Robshaw: English Usage #2
Philip Pullman and the Oxford Comma Philip Pullman recently tweeted that the new Brexit commemorative 50p coin is "illiterate" because...
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