The non-official academy panel, the people the public turn to, by the way, consists nearly exclusively of journalists and newsreaders writing dopey, inconsistent books and articles. Any linguists would be an improvement. David Crystal is perhaps the most influential linguist, but he is such a weak-kneed inconclusive person, the only message he ever gets across is "anything goes", and people ignore him.
Whether a diverse team of linguists could get it together to create a popular grammar guide that people could use is moot, perhaps.
Grammar Brouhaha - ETA Queensland
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Stephen Jones
- Posts: 1421
- Joined: Sun May 18, 2003 5:25 pm
The main problem is that there is no agreed terminology. There is no agreement on what the parts of speech are and what part of speech each word is, nor on how many tenses there are in English (most authorities claim two but the CGEL considers there to be four as it doesn't think the Perfect is an aspect).