Some Help With Written English - David Crystal’s Language Blog

The linguist David Crystal has a very interesting blog where he writes about a range of linguistic matters and about his work in the area.

Some of the entries are worth reading for those wondering how parts of the English language work, or how to get to grips with academic English.

Here are some of the posts (up to December 2010) which you might find interesting or useful.


“On ful(l)” - There is some variation in British and American spellings as to whether to put one “l” or two at the end of words like “enrol/enroll” or “distil/distill”. This post covers the British way of spelling and a brief history.

“On commas” and “On commas, again” - Confused about commas and where they go? These posts should help clear up some of the mystery surrounding these little marks.

“On whatever will be will… be” - A post on constructing verb phrases in the future tense, the difference between “What will be my husband’s name?” and “What will my husband’s name be?”.

“On whilst” - Should you use “while” or “whilst”? Does it matter?

“On possessive apostrophes” - A brief history of the possessive apostrophe. You might benefit from seeing its history and how it came to be used in English, so you can understand how to use it correctly.


“On semi-colons” - Where do they come from and are they useful? This briefly covers both questions.


“On boilt” - There’s no such word as “boilt” in English even though there is “spoilt”. This post doesn’t answer why this might be the case, but it does give a handy little rule of thumb for knowing when to use words where there are both “-ed” and “-t” endings, like “dreamed” and “dreamt”.