Caxton is a new blog about language from Barrie England, an Oxford graduate who has studied English literature, foreign languages, and older varieties of English. It is named after printing pioneer William Caxton, who, as Barrie writes, “by using technology to reach a wider public . . . can be seen as the progenitor of the digital age”.
Barrie wrote Real Grammar before its host pulled the plug; I’ve linked to it here in the past, most recently to his post on the rise of Swiss German dialect. Some of you may also know him from his insightful comments at Sentence first.
Since setting up Caxton and importing his old posts, Barrie has been blogging regularly, offering astute and balanced observations on such subjects as the value of linguistics, the early shapers of English, education, reflexive pronouns, dialects, grammar, and Jacques Brel. Rummage around and you’ll find all sorts of good material.
If you’re interested in the usage, history, politics, and beauty of English – or language generally – I recommend visiting and bookmarking Caxton. I’ve also added it to the links in the sidebar of this blog.
Updates: More thoughts on Caxton: Language Hat wishes it a “long and prosperous career”, while You Don’t Say celebrates “a new voice of sense and informed judgment”.
Thank you for this – not only does the blog look interesting, but my search for it (because I am lame on clicking the correct links) took me to the Caxton Club of the Newberry Library right in Chicago, where I live, and to the equally interesting and equally unknown to me (though a good deal farther away) California Rare Book School in Los Angeles. Not to mention that Caxton, the man, is fascinating as well!
In case you are interested:
http://www.caxtonclub.org/history.html
http://www.calrbs.org/about/
You’re welcome, and thanks for the links. Searchindipity in action!
[…] Stan Carey has introduced me to the new blog Caxton. I’ve been browsing through some of the more recent entries, on topics such as reflexives and whether relative that is a relative pronoun, and I’ll be putting it on the blogroll. […]