Back in 2021, I asked the following question on Twitter:
Linguists and people who read linguists: who do you consider to be good writers in linguistics? That is, independently of the merits (or otherwise) of the content, whose prose is pleasurable to read?
There were a lot of answers given! This post is just a summary. To avoid my own biases creeping in too heavily, I’m providing the answers in two lists.
List A
This is simply a list of people whose names came up more than once in the replies, I’m assuming independently.
David Adger
Alexandra Aikhenvald
Artemis Alexiadou
Felix Ameka
Mark Baker
Jonathan Bobaljik
Dwight Bolinger
Joan Bybee
Deborah Cameron
Wallace Chafe
Bernard Comrie
Greville Corbett
Niklas Coupland
David Crystal
Alexandra D’Arcy
Amy Rose Deal
Guy Deutscher
R. M. W. Dixon
Matthew Dryer
Penny Eckert
David Embick
Nicholas Evans
Nelson Flores
Liliane Haegeman
Michael Halliday
Heidi Harley
Martin Haspelmath
Ray Jackendoff
Roman Jakobson
Barbara Johnstone
William Labov
Bob Ladd
Peter Ladefoged
George Lakoff
Roger Lass
John McCarthy
Jim McCloskey
John McWhorter
Marcin Morzycki
Barbara Partee
Steven Pinker
Geoff Pullum
Ian Roberts
Edward Sapir
Anna Siewierska
Deborah Tannen
Sally Thomason
Larry Trask
Peter Trudgill
Bodo Winter
List B
This is everyone else who was mentioned.
Elzbieta Adamczyk
Uju Anya
Diana Archangeli
Dawn Archer
Laura Arnold
Jenny Audring
Kent Bach
Ad Backus
April Baker-Bell
Rusty Barrett
Michael Beißwenger
Emily Bender
Émile Benveniste
Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero
Katie Bernstein
Catherine Best
Jan Blommaert
Frederick Bodmer
David Britain
Penelope Brown
Siobhan Brownlie
Lyle Campbell
Anne Charity Hudley
Yiya Chen
Lisa Cheng
Andrew Chesterman
Guglielmo Cinque
Guy Cook
Ewa Dabrowska
Katrina Daly Thompson
Helen De Hoop
Hendrik De Smet
Ana Deumert
Jill de Villiers
Jean-Marc Dewaele
Gaston Dorren
Sebastian Dubreil
Rod Ellis
Stephan Elspass
Nick Enfield
Vyvyan Evans
Cathrine Fabricius-Hansen
Charlie Farrington
Esther Figueroa
Charles Fillmore
William Foley
H. W. Fowler
Elaine Francis
Gillian Gallagher
Ginny Gathercole
Anna Giskes
Lila Gleitman
Petra Goedegebuure
Karl-Heinz Göttert
Adele Goldberg
Ernest Gowers
David Gramling
Robert D. Greenberg
Lenore Grenoble
Hubert Haider
Michael Hancher
Jorge Hankamer
Jonathan Harrington
Rebecca Hasselbach
Stefan Hauser
Jeffrey Heath
Irene Heim
Monica Heller
Martin Hilpert
Charles Hockett
Nicole Holliday
Larry Horn
Susan Hunston
Jim Hurford
Nina Hyams
Larry Hyman
Dell Hymes
Mark Johnson
Brian Joseph
Laura Kalin
Noah Katznelson
Geoffrey Khan
Sharese King
Leonid Kogan
Claire Kramsch
Julia Kristeva
Dave Kush
Utpal Lahiri
Robin Lakoff
Howard Lasnik
Julie Legate
Sterre Leufkens
Beth Levin
David Lightfoot
Henning Lobin
Juri Lotman
Martin Luginbühl
Jack Lynch
Dave Malinowski
Peter Matthews
C. M. I. M. Matthiessen
Tony McEnery
Norma Mendoza-Denton
Simon Meier-Vieracker
Craig Melchert
Marianne Mithun
Koldo Mitxelena
Robert Moore
Akira Murakami
Lynne Murphy
Terttu Nevalainen
Marco Neves
Andrew Nevins
Corrine Occhino
Nicholas Ostler
Django Paris
Joe Pater
Aneta Pavlenko
Alison Phipps
Ingrid Piller
Lola Pons Rodríguez
Philomen Probert
Vladimir Propp
Malka Rappaport Hovav
Paul Reed
Timo Roettger
Jonathan Rosa
Deniz Rudin
Ivan Sag
Gillian Sankoff
Michelle Sheehan
Jesse Sheidlower
Michael Silverstein
Peggy Speas
Dan Sperber
Lauren Squires
Arran Stibbe
Sali Tagliamonte
Christine Tardy
Anne-Michelle Tessier
Erik Thomas
Steve Thorne
Susanne Tienken
Adam van Compernolle
Berthold van Maris
Marc van Oostendorp
Ariel Vasquez Carranza
Kai von Fintel
Rachel Walker
Henriette Walter
Chantelle Warner
Calvert Watkins
Andreas Willi
Deirdre Wilson
Martina Wiltschko
Tim Wolcott
Walt Wolfram
Marina Yaguello
George Yule
Ben Zimmer
