Guide to Canadian English Usage

Sarah Robertson is the trade, scholarly, and reference editor of the
Canadian Book Review Annual.

This authoritative usage guide is written from a Canadian perspective
and is intended primarily for Canadian readers. Its 1750
cross-referenced entries are based on illustrative examples

drawn from the Strathy Corpus of Canadian English, which contains 12
million words of contemporary Canadian writing (books, magazines,
journals, and newspapers). Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton, Robertson
Davies, and Northrop Frye are among the authors represented in the
corpus, which is “supplemented by some 650 million words of Canadian
newspaper and magazine text.” Both authors have been associated with
the Strathy Language Unit at Queen’s University.

In addition to addressing specifically Canadian usage issues
(Aboriginal peoples, Quebec English, etc.), the entries give advice on
points of grammar (agreement, dangling modifiers), problematic
expressions (beg the question, try and), style (abbreviations, capital
letters), pronunciation (asphalt, schedule), spelling (judgment or
judgement?, skeptic or sceptic?), punctuation (comma, hyphenation), and
inclusive language (disabilities, race). In each entry, discussion of
the usage problem is followed by illustrative examples drawn from the
corpus and supplementary sources. In addition to the entries, the book
includes an introduction, a list of corpus and supplementary sources, a
bibliography, two appendices, a glossary, and an index of words and
phrases that do not appear as headwords or cross-references in the main
text.

The guide’s pragmatic approach to usage is articulated in the
introduction: “If a standard or correct usage excludes a large
percentage of writers whose words appear before the public weekly,
daily, and even hourly ... what is the point of defining their usage as
unacceptable? Unacceptable to whom? Only to a small group of
self-constituted language experts.” In keeping with this view, many
entries in the guide endorse disputed usages (presently in the sense of
“at present,” hopefully as a sentence adverb, convince and persuade
as synonyms) on the ground that they are widespread in Canadian writing.


The consternation it is likely to elicit from the language police
should not prevent the Guide to Canadian English Usage from becoming a
standard reference work for Canadian writers and editors.