Yesterday’s Errors

By Anne Curzan. Last week I listened to a conversation on “All Things Considered” between National Public Radio’s Robert Siegel and author Ammon Shea about his new book, Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation. It was fundamentally a discussion of language change and attitudes about language change, running the gamut from—to quote Siegel—“linguistic scolds to the most permissive writers on language. ”Shea, who puts himself at the permissive end of the spectrum, explained how some words that we now consider completely standard, such as lunch and balding, were once considered errors. Read more...