One of the objects of the University of Leiden research project “Bridging the Unbridgeable: Linguists, Prescriptivists and the General Public” is to study attitudes to English usage. To this end, an online survey was conducted last year on the acceptability of three problematical sentences, and in this talk I will present the results of the survey. In analysing the data I will focus on the emotional language used in many of the responses, and I will try and explain why such language occurs. In addition, I will discuss what looks like a new usage problem that arose spontaneously in several (American) responses. The attitudes survey is still open, and those interested in the topic (native and non-native speakers of English alike) are cordially invited to express their opinions on any one or all of the sentences in the survey.
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