Anne Curzan
Contributor, That’s What They SayAnne 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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Cheesemongers sell cheese, and gossipmongers usually start the gossip or spread it, rather than sell it. -
Many of us don’t talk about doornails very often, but sometimes we will when things are really, well, dead.
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If you know how the sound "f" worked in Old English, it suddenly isn’t mysterious why the "f" in "leaf" turns into a "v" in the plural form "leaves."
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If I say I’m gonna do it, I don’t necessarily mean I’m headed out the door right now to do it.
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2025 had lots of people talking about sixes and sevens, but not in the loose ends kind of way.
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Next time you’re hanging out with friends, you can debate just how slangy the phrasal verb ‘hang out’ is.
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This may be one of the only times that throw pillows, golf, and curling all get wrapped into the same discussion.
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When we get schooled at something, we may feel humbled by the experience; but when we win something, we may also say we feel humbled by the experience.
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When terror rains down, we suddenly have a spelling question.
