The new Fowler still won’t grasp the nettle on ‘they’

I’ve been having a lovely time splashing about in the new Fowler. It has been revised by Jeremy Butterfield, an OUP lexicographer. There’s a new usage in it that I want to talk about, but first a word about the title. The title page says Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage. In 1996, the previous edition, the third, edited by good old Robert Burchfield, was The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage. In 1926 H.W. Fowler’s celebrated book had been published as A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. We called it Modern English Usage both before and after 1996, and more often Fowler — a metonym and more, as Jeremy Butterfield points out. So why doesn’t it now say Fowler on the cover, not Fowler’s? As it is, no one will call the new edition by either half of the publisher’s chosen title.

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Matthew Lynn

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Anyway, an updated entry is for they.