PULLMAN, Wash. — Washington State University literature professor Paul Brians, creator of a popular Web site and author of a recent book on common English usage errors, will appear in a panel discussion in Portland Feb. 27 following a matinee performance of the Portland Center Stage production of the musical “My Fair Lady.”
Written and scored in 1956 by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, the musical is based on the George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion,” in which a linguist and member of the English aristocracy, Henry Higgins, determines to civilize an uneducated and unmannered cockney “guttersnipe,” Eliza Doolittle.
The panel discussion, “Why Can’t the English?: A discussion of language, proper and improper,” will focus on English language usage, which is an integral feature of “My Fair Lady’s” story line. The panel discussion is expected to commence at about 5 p.m., or immediately following the conclusion of matinee performance, which will begin at 2 p.m. Following the panel discussion, Brians will remain available to sign his book.
Brians, whose Web site now attracts an average of over 3,600 visitors a day, is the author of “Common Errors in English Usage,” a guide containing a wide compilation of the most common problems in English language usage, published by William, James & Co in Wilsonville, Oregon. Copies of the book will be available for sale during the performance, which will be at the Newmark Theatre on SW Broadway in downtown
Like his Web site, Brians’ book is both instructional and entertaining. He has said he first got the idea of writing about language usage while studying restaurant menus, which often contain such common misspellings as “expresso,” rather than “espresso.”
“I am a literature professor and do not teach composition, grammar or related subjects,” Brians said, “but I am concerned with improving writing.”
Brians said the main advantage of his book over his Web site is portability and ease of navigation.
“Browsing through it on the beach or looking up a particular word or phrase is easier with the book,” he said. “It also makes a nice gift book, especially for a student.”
Brians notes in his book that he avoids discussing many common misspellings, concentrating instead on linguistic confusions that computer spelling checkers will not catch. “Common Errors in English Usage” also discusses on many confusing expressions, homonyms, words of foreign origin, redundancies and grammatical mistakes.
