The lexicography of English usage: describing usage variation and change

The lexicography of English usage is often discussed as being prescriptive or descriptive, but only rarely is it analysed in terms of how usage writers use language evidence in exploring issues of current and changing usage, and whether their methodology is empirical or otherwise. This chapter discusses two twenty-first-century approaches to the use of evidence in usage writing: the selective, a priori use of citations by Bryan Garner to support his ‘Language Change Index’ in Modern American Usage (3rd edn, 2009); and the wealth of data contained in the GloWbE corpus (2012) and others created by Mark Davies, available to quantify usage trends worldwide. Corpus evidence on the assimilation of Latin borrowings, e.g. use of data in singular agreement, shows this is relatively less advanced in the US than elsewhere, which aligns with its stigmatization in American academic discourse.