Anne Curzan
Contributor, That’s What They SayAnne Curzan is the Geneva Smitherman Collegiate Professor of English and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at the University of Michigan. She also holds faculty appointments in the Department of Linguistics and the School of Education.
As an expert in the history of the English language, Anne describes herself as a fount of random linguistic information about how English works and how it got to be that way. She received the University’s Henry Russel Award for outstanding research and teaching in 2007, as well as the Faculty Recognition Award in 2009 and the 2012 John Dewey Award for undergraduate teaching.
Anne has published multiple books and dozens of articles on the history of the English language (from medieval to modern), language and gender, and pedagogy. Her newest book is Fixing English: Prescriptivism and Language History (2014). She has also created three audio/video courses for The Great Courses, including “The Secret Life of Words” and “English Grammar Boot Camp.”
When she is not tracking down new slang or other changes in the language, Anne can be found running around Ann Arbor, swimming in pools both indoor and out, and now doing yoga (in hopes that she can keep running for a few more years to come).
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We keep track of things, we lose track of things, we run track, and listen to tracks. Sometimes though, we confuse “track” with “tract.” -
Alls our listener wanted to know is what's going on with the “alls” in “alls I know.”
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Technically, not everyone you buy real estate from is a realtor.
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The summer sped by and the car sped off, but perhaps we speeded up the process.
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A bare-faced lie may also be bald. Sometimes, it may even be bold.
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It doesn't seem like coming up with a response to "thank you" should be that complicated. When you think about it though, there are a lot of options.
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Even for speakers who feel solid about the distinction between "lie" and "lay," they may lose that distinction when "low" is added to the mix.
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All right, last week, we got distracted by the versatility of "all right." This week, we look at why spelling it as one word, "alright," makes some people really mad.
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All right, all right. It's time for us to start talking about whether "alright" is all right.
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