Review by Booklist Review
Bryson approaches his subject with verve. Opening gleefully by quoting nonsensical directions translated from Japanese into English, he goes on to discuss how English, in spite of its many baffling traits, has become the international language of business and science. Bryson glides from a historical summary of linguistics to discussions of quirky names, swearing, dialects, meaning shifts, and how people tend to "compress and mangle words." He reports on attempts at creating artificial languages such as Esperanto and notes that translation is a costly and error-prone industry. Never technical and always entertaining, Bryson, a true word lover, offers a cascade of examples of the vagaries of language. A fascinating subject, deftly handled. Bibliography; to be indexed. --Donna Seaman
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Linguistics as pop science: Mario Pei's works, such as The Story of Language , have shown how this formula can fascinate, and Bryson's ( The Lost Continent ) blend of linguistic anecdote and Anglo-Saxon cultural history likewise keeps us turning pages. Depth of treatment is not, however, to be found here. Bryson, who wants to see comedy in the English language's quest for hegemony in the modern world, strives for entertaining ironies. While his historical review is thorough, replete with enlightening scholarly citations, he mostly reiterates conventional views about English's structural superiority, asserting that the language dominates the globe today by virtue of its lack of inflection and its ``democratic'' suppleness in accommodating new forms. He retells old tales with fresh verve, and his review of the spelling reform movement has particular merit, but Bryson becomes sloppy when matters of rhetoric and grammar arise, e.g., ``He Shakespeare even used adverbs as nouns, as with `that bastardly rogue,' '' and in presenting his opinions (Samuel Johnson's prose is deemed ``rambling''). BOMC main selection . (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
YA-- Bryson traces the English language from the Neanderthal man of 30,000 years ago to the present. Interestingly, he contrasts the language as it developed simultaneously in various locations. He also presents examples of the evolution of words and their spellings. The book is well researched and informative; the thorough index will aid novices in the exploration of the language.-- Diane Goheen, Topeka West High School, KS (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A merry and bright Baedeker to the English language, its history, character, and probable future. American expatriate (to Britain) Bryson proves a witty and knowing guide here, with scarcely a trace of the sneer that spoiled his popular tour of small-town America, The Lost Continent (1989). Instead, a gentle humor, enamored of oddities, warms his discussion of the origins of English, its evolution and current world dominance (so that even in Tokyo, he says, one will find English warnings to motorists: ""When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn""). Constantly striving to amuse, Bryson at times seems to be compiling merely a Ripley's of English as bizarre facts stream by in dizzying array: a list of weird American place-names including Dull, Tennessee, Ding Dong, Texas, and ""the unsurpassable Maggie's Nipples, Wyoming""; a list of some of the 1,685 words that Shakespeare donated to the language (including ""critical,"" ""fretful,"" ""obscene,"" and ""gust""); and so on. But Bryson's passion for words shines throughout, and chapters on how English evolved from Indo-European and Anglo-Norman roots, and on its virtues and vices in spelling, pronunciation, and grammar invigorate potentially dull subjects (""English grammar is so complex and confusing,"" he points out, ""for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin--a language with which it has precious little in common""). Lively chapters on swearing, wordplay (crosswords, palindromes, anagrams--""mother in law = woman Hitler""--etc.), and the language's bright tomorrow close Bryson's upbeat account. An erudite delight, sure to captivate many. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
