Back in July, our curiousity about the changes in language usage over time got the better of us and we launched our first research project: What’s the Word? guised under the side-prodding title of “We’re word snobs“. Part A focused primarily on spelling preference. At closing on October 1st, we had 84 responses from speakers around the globe! Though we’re planning to analyse results on a wholistic level, we can share at least one thing we discovered:
The majority of participants use the regularised “burned” when using it as a verb.
The same majority tended to choose the irregular, traditional “burnt” when an adjective is required.
That’s merely the tip of the iceberg from fascinating data collected from the Part A! That branch is now closed to participation (if you’d like to look at the raw data, please download this PDF), so we’re now moving onto the second branch of our research:
Do you ask for a biggie ‘chips’ or ‘fries’ when you get your hamburger?
Are planning to go on ‘holiday’ or ‘vacation’ in the fall?
Take the opportunity to help us out this October by reading the 25 statements and choosing an option. Sure, it’s a little prescribed this time (though you have the option to clarify your answers), but on the second section coming in November, you’ll have a lot more freedom.
Can’t wait to see your responses! And please, pass it on to everyone you can. Thank you!
