ABSTRACT
Usage guides are a different text type from style guides, and the type of authors as well as the readership of usage guides are identified. An inventory is presented of usage guides across the ages, with the criteria being set out for selection principles in compiling the HUGE database of British and American usage guides and (grammatical) usage problems (1770–2010). A chronological overview shows a steady increase over the years of American publications and a bumpier one for British usage guides. The latter picture is due to important developments in the during the 1960s and 1970s, when grammar teaching was removed from the school curriculum, and during the 1950s, when there was a need for an expanded recruitment process for the growing post-World War II Civil Service. Striking differences between British and American publications are highlighted, and the potential of the HUGE database as a research tool is illustrated, as a means to study whether different writers (British/American, male/female, linguists/non-linguists, early/later writers) provide different usage advice.
