<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>In <italic>The King’s English: A Guide to Modern Usage</italic>, Kingsley Amis identified H. W. Fowler as his great predecessor. Amis revealed himself as a soldier in the army of prescriptivists, voices that settle ‘modern linguistic problems’ while proudly parading as non-linguists. The book exposed Amis’s acrimonious dispute with descriptive linguists, while the writer delivered his very own brand of linguistics to his readers. This paper looks at the success of Amis’s book and its similarities with Fowler’s. It also emphasizes the continuity and popularity of usage handbooks while presenting some of their chief characteristics as exemplified by Amis’s work.</p></abstract>

In The King’s English: A Guide to Modern Usage, Kingsley Amis identified H. W. Fowler as his great predecessor. Amis revealed himself as a soldier in the army of prescriptivists, voices that settle ‘modern linguistic problems’ while proudly parading as non-linguists. The book exposed Amis’s acrimonious dispute with descriptive linguists, while the writer delivered his very own brand of linguistics to his readers. This paper looks at the success of Amis’s book and its similarities with Fowler’s. It also emphasizes the continuity and popularity of usage handbooks while presenting some of their chief characteristics as exemplified by Amis’s work.

Kingsley Amis: The Prescriptivist

”Babeş-Bolyai” University of Cluj-Napoca, PhD student

Romanian Journal of English Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

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In The King’s English: A Guide to Modern Usage, Kingsley Amis identified H. W. Fowler as his great predecessor. Amis revealed himself as a soldier in the army...

Kingsley Amis: The Prescriptivist

Published Online: Dec 30, 2016

Page range: 13 - 20

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/rjes-2016-0003

Keywords
H. W. Fowler, Kingsley Amis, prescriptivism, sociolinguistics, usage handbooks

© 2016 Romanian Journal of English Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Kingsley Amis: The Prescriptivist

Published Online: Dec 30, 2016

Page range: 13 - 20

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/rjes-2016-0003

KeywordsH. W. Fowler, Kingsley Amis, prescriptivism, sociolinguistics, usage handbooks

© 2016 Romanian Journal of English Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
H. W. Fowler, Kingsley Amis, prescriptivism, sociolinguistics, usage handbooks