“Sloppy speech is like sloppy dress”

This chapter discusses the construction of linguistic identities on the basis of the so-called usage debate revolving around disputed and stigmatised language features, such as the split infinitive or literally as an intensifier. Linguistic features such as these fall into somewhat of a grey area between standard and nonstandard language. It is, however, known that the use of nonstandard as well as standard forms and constructions has become "ideologized as distinctive and as implicating a distinctive kind of people". The chapter highlights how linguistic identities can be constructed on the basis of stigmatised nonstandard language features in the usage debate. Despite their gradual incorporation of sociolinguistic theory, usage attitude studies have yet to be investigated with regard to linguistic identity constructions. The indexicality of language plays a vital role in the construction of linguistic identities as a link "between linguistic forms and social meanings".