Langscape 6: Surveying contemporary English usage

LANGSCAPE is a Cambridge University Press project associated with both ‘English Today’ and a new international usage guide for the year 2000 by Pam Peters, author of the ‘Cambridge Australian English Style Guide’ (1995). Like the Australian publication, the international work will be distinctive in its use of empirical evidence from computer corpora as well as data elicited from surveys of users of English round the world. Because English is a world language, any account of usage that is limited to one person's views and resources is inadequate. The first topic and questionnaire (‘The ubiquitous letter e’) appeared in ET53 (Jan 98), the second (‘To capitalize or not to capitalize’) in ET54 (Apr 98), the third (‘Differing on agreement’) in ET55 (Jul 98), the fourth (‘Permanent loans: plurals for Latin borrowings’) in ET56 (Oct 98), and the fifth (‘Jots and tittles’) in ET57 (Jan 99). See the accompanying box for further information on the Survey.