Are you annoyed by grammar purists?

Do prescriptive pedants pester you with trivial issues of usage?

What you need is some ammunition for fighting back. And it’s here, in the new book Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation.

Linguist Daniel Midgley talks with author Ammon Shea on this episode of Talk the Talk.


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180: Bad English (featuring Ammon Shea)

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Promo

Promo with Chris Wheeldon, 2014-10-21: Bad English

Show notes

Linguists decry accent contest
http://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2014/10/04/Linguists-decry-accent-contest-n-at/stories/201410030201

What’s Wrong With “America’s Ugliest Accent”
http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/10/02/america_s_ugliest_accent_what_s_wrong_with_gawker_s_tournament.html

Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation by Ammon Shea
http://www.penguin.com.au/contributors/6040/ammon-shea

Ammon’s article in The Week
http://theweek.com/article/index/263113/a-brief-history-of-linguistic-aggravation

Ammon Shea’s website
http://www.ammon-shea.com/

What is the ‘shirtfront’ Tony Abbott wants to give to Vladimir Putin?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-14/shirtfront-tony-abbott-vladimir-putin-g20/5811502

Russian official mocks Tony Abbott after threat to ‘shirt-front’ Vladimir Putin
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/russian-official-mocks-tony-abbott-after-threat-to-shirtfront-vladimir-putin-20141014-115pp0.html

buttonhole
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/buttonhole

Buttonhole was originally buttonhold.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=Buttonhole

“When fashion decreed that upper buttons be eliminated, button-holders didn’t suddenly reform. Instead they began grabbing people by the buttonholes (that) designers, for no good reason, left on the lapels and the phrase became to buttonhole.”
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/6/messages/68.html

The French have the same expression: Serrer le bouton de quelqu’un.
http://www.bartleby.com/81/2731.html