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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This week we're getting back to our roots. Our Latin roots, that is.A listener named Seth Epstein asked us how to pronounce the Latin phrase "in situ." He… -
There are pundits who really don't like it if people call them "pundents." As a listener pointed out to us, this mispronunciation isn't uncommon.Susan…
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This week we looked at two words that have nothing to do with each other, aside from the fact that they both begin with “p.” At least they’ve got one…
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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.”Recently, a…
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Our listener Susan Lessian is a Boston transplant who says she still struggles with some "midwesternisms," despite having moved here years ago.She says,…
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Many of us were taught that a sentence should never end with a preposition. However, some sentences just sound better when they do.Think about a parent…
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Generally, the word “either” is pronounced either with a long “I” sound or a short “I” sound. People on both sides have pledged loyalty to their…
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The rule about when to use "between" and when to use "among" seems straightforward, until you look more closely. Then it's not straightforward at all.Our…
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When we describe someone as “obtuse,” there are clear negative connotations. The scope of those connotations has been expanding, perhaps because of the…
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On this week's That's What They Say, English Professor Anne Curzan fills us in on the American Dialect Society's annual "Word of the Year" vote.The fact…
