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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At this point, we can manifest our dream future, a good grade on a exam, or even a parking spot. -
Currying favor has everything to do with flattery and horses, and nothing to do with food.
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There’s a children’s rhyme that involves liars and pants on fire and various types of wires. Now, we can say things are “pants on fire” false.
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If you worry about if or whether you should use "if" or "whether" in exactly this construction, you're not alone.
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It's been really dreary and so icy outside lately. It's awfully tempting to wear super cozy clothes and use lots of intensifiers.
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Badgers live underground and are nocturnal, so we don't see them running around all that often. Somehow though, they're associated with a negative, annoying verb. -
The year 2023 is officially in the record books. As part of taking stock, the members of the American Dialect Society met to consider what we've all been up to linguistically.
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Many of us were taught the rule that we shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition, and honestly this is a rule we should be asking questions about.
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It's undeniable that "Tupperware" has become a generic catch-all for plastic containers, regardless of shape, size, or brand. Not everyone likes this.
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When you stop to think about a verb like "batten," you may be struck by just how few objects it can take.
