Anne Curzan
Anne 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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Unless you've managed to avoid all sources of media, you've probably heard or read the word "whistleblower" once or twice in the past couple of months....
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Consider the banana. Actually, consider the top banana, because that's the phrase that someone recently brought to our attention. Professor Anne Curzan...
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You're lying in bed on one of the hottest nights of the year. Fortunately, you've got a nice, quiet fan on top of your dresser to keep you cool while...
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Today it's politicians who sometimes get criticized for being wishy-washy, rather than the soup getting criticized as wishy-washy. Let's back up a bit....
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If you totally don't drink alcohol, you could call yourself a teetotaler. A listener recently asked us about the spelling of "teetotaler." They wanted...
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Sometimes people send us questions that we avoid trying to answer. We don't do this to be mean. The problem is, some questions we get have answers that...
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Have you ever heard someone describe the United States and another English-speaking country as “two countries separated by a common language?” A...
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Few things can shut down an outdoor swimming pool faster than a good old-fashioned summer thunderstorm. English professor Anne Curzan is a longtime...
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While harps make beautiful music, most of us would agree there’s nothing beautiful about someone harping on something. Our listener Kalen Oswald...
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We love it when people send us grammar jokes. One that is passed around quite a bit has to do with the construction "where's it at."