ANNE CURZAN
Expert on English usage and the history of the English language, and Professor at the University of Michigan
Author of several books, including Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words (2024)
Anne is an expert on English usage and the history of the English language, including changes we’re seeing and hearing all around us. She describes herself as a fount of fun linguistic information about the English language.
Anne Curzan is the Geneva Smitherman Collegiate Professor of English, Linguistics, and Education at the University of Michigan, where she also currently serves as the dean of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Her most recent book is Says Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words (2024).
Anne is an expert on English usage and the history of the English language, including changes we’re seeing and hearing all around us. She describes herself as a fount of fun linguistic information about the English language (e.g., why is colonel spelled that way?), which she enjoys sharing online and on the radio. She is also an English professor and copy editor who has years of experience balancing careful writing and effective speaking with an openness to variation and change in language. Anne can be found talking about language on the weekly show “That's What They Say” on local NPR station Michigan Public; she also wrote biweekly (in the every two weeks sense!) for six years for the blog Lingua Franca on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s website. Her TED talk “What makes a word ‘real’?” has more than 2 million views on the national TED talk site.
Anne is an award-winning scholar and teacher. She received an Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship and 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. She has published multiple books and dozens of articles, and she has created the audio/video courses “Secret Life of Words: English Words and Their Origins” and “English Grammar Boot Camp” for Wondrium (formerly The Great Courses). She speaks to audiences across the country about how to use our words wisely and which language peeves are worth worrying about (including whether it’s okay to end a sentence with a preposition like that).
Speech topics
Using Words Wisely
Does "irregardless" make you cringe? Do you worry that no one knows how to use the apostrophe anymore? If so, this lively session on language is for you. From her perspective as a historian of the English language, linguist, and veteran English professor, Anne Curzan explains changes happening in spoken and written English and whether we need to worry. Curzan shares how she handles specific usage questions--including “who vs. whom,” “less vs. fewer,” “based on vs. based off,” and the perennial favorite “between you and I”--as a former member of the American Heritage Dictionary Usage panel, a teacher of writing, and a copy editor. You’ll leave with a heightened awareness of changes afoot in the English language and tools for becoming an even more skilled speaker and writer.
Books
Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words
A kinder, funner usage guide to the ever-changing English language and a useful tool for both the grammar stickler and the more colloquial user of English, from linguist and veteran professor Anne Curzan
How English Works: A Linguistic Introduction
A major introductory language/linguistics textbook written specifically for English and Education majors, this book is an engaging introduction to the structure of English, general theories in linguistics, and important issues in sociolinguistics