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colorfulleo92's review against another edition
4.0
Very interesting audiobook and I laughed a little at the information that people have complained ove the language geting worse since.. always basically
blissfulbookworm's review against another edition
4.0
If you love etymology (i.e. the origin of words), then Bad English should be a pretty entertaining read! I found the book especially interesting given the fact that I've worked as an ESL teacher for years, and long ago acknowledged just how crazy the English language is... Indeed, we have no idea how wacky our language is, and we should all be humbled that so many around the world endeavor to learn it (although I know this is arguablyy a reflection of market/neocolonial/globalization/etc.... pressues, but I'll save that rant for another day).
davenash's review
2.0
We have two parties on English usage - the descriptivists and the perscriptivists - as Mary Noris remarks in Between You and Me, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25622752-between-you-me we may as well be the democrats and the republicans.
When it comes to standard written English - see David Foster Wallace on Authority and American Usage essay in Consider the Lobster - I am in the prescriptivist party.
So I am predisposed to pan a descriptivist book and Shea's sneaky ways and filler fulled writing doesn't help his cause.
He includes several examples supposed solecisms that even the most hard-core prescriptivist does not consider to be a grammatical mistake. Limb instead of Leg is the most glaring example of faux-solecism, but we've also accepted Hopefully to start a sentence and a preposition to end one. I would also have no problem with starting a sentence with And or But. But then he brings up real solecisms like between you and I, irregardless, literally instead of figuratively, and like as an intensifier. The first two exemplify over corrections by posers. I would add unnecessary serial commas, which Shea doesn't mention, to the over-corrections list. The second two solecisms - "like" and "literally" - scream nitwit.
But since Shea throws in all these old hang ups, it makes the current solecisms seem silly and that in just a few years, we will accept them. Never.
Shea introduces a solecism with an authoritative quote against it and then an authoritative author violating the supposed rule. The first word he chose, Hopefully, he quotes, "anyone who uses Hopefully to start sentence is an imbecile". Then he follows with "Hopefully, ...." by Ronald Reagan. At first I laughed because I thought he meant Reagan was an imbecile. Only later did I catch on to Shea's juxtaposition trap. I resented his gotcha with Nobokov when Nobokov was writing in the voice of a fictional character. While it's perfectly natural for a character to say finalize a divorce, that doesn't mean that using verb-nouns is acceptable or good practice.
Shea flaunts a rule he should follow: cut unnecessary words. His explanations and narration was too long winded for me. There was a lot filler.
Shea devotes a whole chapter on Shakespeare's poor English. Shakespeare didn't have a copy editor or even Strunk & White. Shakespeare did not write plays to be read but to be acted. Shea does not site Shakespeare's sonnets, only the iambic pentameter lines of his fictional characters.
Babe Ruth ate, aphoristically, hot dogs and beer, does that suggest today's baseball players eat the same?
Shea avoids the contention between Fewer and Less. I noticed that unlike other supermarkets, Whole Foods terms their express lines - 10 items or fewer. I could care less about utilitarian signage and everyday usage.
Shea fails distinguish between standard written English and all other forms. Written English does not have the benefit of verbal inflections or body language. The basic rules of standard written English help readers read better.
Shea does not disclose that language marks culture. If you want to fit in and be accepted by the group, then you need to speak the language of the group. SWE is it's own culture and the leaders and members of the culture are free to determine the rules. If you want success professionally or academically - just between you and I, you literally need to follow the rules of SWE irregardless of like whatever Shea says.
And that is the best stated argument for being a prescriptivist.
When it comes to standard written English - see David Foster Wallace on Authority and American Usage essay in Consider the Lobster - I am in the prescriptivist party.
So I am predisposed to pan a descriptivist book and Shea's sneaky ways and filler fulled writing doesn't help his cause.
He includes several examples supposed solecisms that even the most hard-core prescriptivist does not consider to be a grammatical mistake. Limb instead of Leg is the most glaring example of faux-solecism, but we've also accepted Hopefully to start a sentence and a preposition to end one. I would also have no problem with starting a sentence with And or But. But then he brings up real solecisms like between you and I, irregardless, literally instead of figuratively, and like as an intensifier. The first two exemplify over corrections by posers. I would add unnecessary serial commas, which Shea doesn't mention, to the over-corrections list. The second two solecisms - "like" and "literally" - scream nitwit.
But since Shea throws in all these old hang ups, it makes the current solecisms seem silly and that in just a few years, we will accept them. Never.
Shea introduces a solecism with an authoritative quote against it and then an authoritative author violating the supposed rule. The first word he chose, Hopefully, he quotes, "anyone who uses Hopefully to start sentence is an imbecile". Then he follows with "Hopefully, ...." by Ronald Reagan. At first I laughed because I thought he meant Reagan was an imbecile. Only later did I catch on to Shea's juxtaposition trap. I resented his gotcha with Nobokov when Nobokov was writing in the voice of a fictional character. While it's perfectly natural for a character to say finalize a divorce, that doesn't mean that using verb-nouns is acceptable or good practice.
Shea flaunts a rule he should follow: cut unnecessary words. His explanations and narration was too long winded for me. There was a lot filler.
Shea devotes a whole chapter on Shakespeare's poor English. Shakespeare didn't have a copy editor or even Strunk & White. Shakespeare did not write plays to be read but to be acted. Shea does not site Shakespeare's sonnets, only the iambic pentameter lines of his fictional characters.
Babe Ruth ate, aphoristically, hot dogs and beer, does that suggest today's baseball players eat the same?
Shea avoids the contention between Fewer and Less. I noticed that unlike other supermarkets, Whole Foods terms their express lines - 10 items or fewer. I could care less about utilitarian signage and everyday usage.
Shea fails distinguish between standard written English and all other forms. Written English does not have the benefit of verbal inflections or body language. The basic rules of standard written English help readers read better.
Shea does not disclose that language marks culture. If you want to fit in and be accepted by the group, then you need to speak the language of the group. SWE is it's own culture and the leaders and members of the culture are free to determine the rules. If you want success professionally or academically - just between you and I, you literally need to follow the rules of SWE irregardless of like whatever Shea says.
And that is the best stated argument for being a prescriptivist.
amyacowan's review against another edition
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
5.0
adularia25's review against another edition
4.0
Ah, I do so love a book about words, and word uses.
Now, if only some fool person hadn't "corrected" the copy of this I checked out from the library. I mean really, I get that you are reading the book to learn about words, but the corrections the person made weren't even correct! Gallic is must definitely different from Gaelic, and don't get me started on the commas added in!
But that is neither here nor there, as it has nothing to do with the actual content of the book.
I have to admit, I did like reading about all the "rules" since I break so many of them in my own writing.
However, as delightful parts of the book were, it was more like a taste, rather than drinking from a deep well of knowledge. It flitted from topic to topic, staying just long enough to make you want more information. The endnotes helped, but I wouldn't have minded a longer book if it meant going even more in-depth.
The section on inkhorns was fun (especially since I had just been studying them for a game I made). That said, there could have been more written about ghost words. They were touched on briefly (though not by name) with the history of cocoa from cacao as that is a ghost word which became real, so to speak. But they are fascinating enough to have merited more attention - given that there are a number of words which entered the English language through misspellings, (and some which were quickly removed when discovered)!
Likewise, I would have loved a sections on sniglets - those words which were created because someone thought they were needed (such as chortle) which again, were touched on briefly, though not by name.
Of course, at this point I've talked more about what isn't in the book than what is... but I'm verbose by nature, and doubly so when talking about words.
Without a doubt this is a good book to read, if only so that you can fling counter-rules back at people when they tell you to never start a sentence with "And" or end a sentence with a preposition.
Now, if only some fool person hadn't "corrected" the copy of this I checked out from the library. I mean really, I get that you are reading the book to learn about words, but the corrections the person made weren't even correct! Gallic is must definitely different from Gaelic, and don't get me started on the commas added in!
But that is neither here nor there, as it has nothing to do with the actual content of the book.
I have to admit, I did like reading about all the "rules" since I break so many of them in my own writing.
However, as delightful parts of the book were, it was more like a taste, rather than drinking from a deep well of knowledge. It flitted from topic to topic, staying just long enough to make you want more information. The endnotes helped, but I wouldn't have minded a longer book if it meant going even more in-depth.
The section on inkhorns was fun (especially since I had just been studying them for a game I made). That said, there could have been more written about ghost words. They were touched on briefly (though not by name) with the history of cocoa from cacao as that is a ghost word which became real, so to speak. But they are fascinating enough to have merited more attention - given that there are a number of words which entered the English language through misspellings, (and some which were quickly removed when discovered)!
Likewise, I would have loved a sections on sniglets - those words which were created because someone thought they were needed (such as chortle) which again, were touched on briefly, though not by name.
Of course, at this point I've talked more about what isn't in the book than what is... but I'm verbose by nature, and doubly so when talking about words.
Without a doubt this is a good book to read, if only so that you can fling counter-rules back at people when they tell you to never start a sentence with "And" or end a sentence with a preposition.
beetific's review against another edition
3.0
Enjoyed the later chapters (discussions on English vs. Latin, Shakespeare's coinages/neologisms, Orwell's thoughts on the English language) and the introductions to the chapters much more than the (many) examples provided. It was humorous to read (and echoes much of the prescriptive vs. descriptive debate on language/dictionaries that I came across in Kory Stamper's Word for Word) but it was a little repetitive for my tastes- lots of words/examples, and just a little too much in depth exploration of all of these examples' histories (of course, what else did I expect when the title denotes that the book is a history of linguistic aggravation?). I mostly skimmed the examples to get to the later chapters, but the book would make a great gift for anyone interested in linguistics (aka my dad).
lisa_mc's review against another edition
4.0
We all have our language peeves, plus the rules we were taught in grade school, plus Strunk and White and whatever other usage guides we consult. And much of that is wrong.
Writing manuals and stylebooks are plagued by language “rules” that have no basis in English grammar, that fail to take into account the fact that living languages change, or that are someone’s “aggravations” that got codified, serving only to distinguish those in the know from the “barbarians.”
Author Ammon Shea, who read the entire Oxford English Dictionary over the course of a year (and then wrote a book about it, “Reading the OED”), must have seen while he was reading it how many of the linguistics truths we hold dear aren’t really true at all. Couple that with all the peevers that come out of the woodwork when the topic is grammar or usage (Shea has written a couple of other books on that as well), and there’s plenty of fodder for another book, hence the informative and entertaining “Bad English.”
The book directly takes on the peevers who believe that every “aggravate” meaning “irritate,” every vogue “verbed” noun, every “irregardless,” every split infinitive, every sentence-ending preposition, every sentence-starting conjunction is one more blow of the wrecking ball against our noble and pure English. And because Shea has done his homework -- what better source is there than the OED on matters of English? -- he’s not just counter-peeving, he’s backing up his assertions with research and facts, busting myths and correcting the correctors.
"One of the things that is most curious about people who hold themselves up as language purists,” Shea writes, “is that they seem to spend considerably more time complaining about language than they do celebrating it, much as if an art lover focused all their efforts on diatribes about the painter who were ruining the medium rather than the ones who were advancing it." Yes, Shea used “their” as a singular on purpose.
Shea breaks his examinations down into words whose meanings have changed (many words, such as “decimate,” have had this happen more than once, and Shea’s explanation of the original original meaning of “decimate” isn’t the kill-every-tenth-person sticklers would have us believe), words that are “not a word,” “verbed” nouns, grammatical gremlins, things that are “ruining the language,” and the arguments that people use to defend English. He ends up with a list of “221 Words That Were Once Frowned Upon,” from “accessorize” to “zoom,” which has some entries that will likely surprise you.
The book is a fun (yes, it’s fine to use “fun” as an adjective, despite that usage having been called “slovenly” as recently as 1980, Shea notes) look at how and why peeves develop, the history of various words and usages, and the ever-shifting nature of English. “Language has an irrepressible desire to change,” Shea points out, “and there are almost no words in English that have been around for more than a few hundred years without taking on new meanings, changing their old ones, or coming to simultaneously mean one thing and the opposite.”
Shea’s lively prose makes this book an enjoyable romp through the history of English while providing fodder against language alarmists. Anyone who can get the phrase “punctilious nitpickery” into print obviously has both a love of language and a sense of humor.
But he does go a little overboard: He’s quite harsh on Orwell’s classic “six language rules,” focusing on the letter of the rules (and the fact that Orwell himself breaks them frequently) rather than their spirit, which allows much more flexibility. He doesn’t have a lot of patience with those who dictate language use -- referring to “screeds” by “language scolds” -- which is understandable, but he doesn’t really distinguish between the priggish prescriptivists and the people whose job it is to produce professional communication for a mass audience.
As an editor, I recognize that language is a living, changing entity and that obsolete rules, rules that aren’t rules and distinctions that are simply “secret handshakes” do no one any good. I also know that language needs to follow some standards in order to effectively and credibly communicate. “Bad English” is a great tool for arguing against the non-rules and shibboleths, but not every rule is bogus, and not every guideline is repressive or worthless. For the sake of clarity in communication, there need to be common standards -- but they need to exist for the sake of clarity, not for the sake of barring words or usages some “purists” don’t like.
Writing manuals and stylebooks are plagued by language “rules” that have no basis in English grammar, that fail to take into account the fact that living languages change, or that are someone’s “aggravations” that got codified, serving only to distinguish those in the know from the “barbarians.”
Author Ammon Shea, who read the entire Oxford English Dictionary over the course of a year (and then wrote a book about it, “Reading the OED”), must have seen while he was reading it how many of the linguistics truths we hold dear aren’t really true at all. Couple that with all the peevers that come out of the woodwork when the topic is grammar or usage (Shea has written a couple of other books on that as well), and there’s plenty of fodder for another book, hence the informative and entertaining “Bad English.”
The book directly takes on the peevers who believe that every “aggravate” meaning “irritate,” every vogue “verbed” noun, every “irregardless,” every split infinitive, every sentence-ending preposition, every sentence-starting conjunction is one more blow of the wrecking ball against our noble and pure English. And because Shea has done his homework -- what better source is there than the OED on matters of English? -- he’s not just counter-peeving, he’s backing up his assertions with research and facts, busting myths and correcting the correctors.
"One of the things that is most curious about people who hold themselves up as language purists,” Shea writes, “is that they seem to spend considerably more time complaining about language than they do celebrating it, much as if an art lover focused all their efforts on diatribes about the painter who were ruining the medium rather than the ones who were advancing it." Yes, Shea used “their” as a singular on purpose.
Shea breaks his examinations down into words whose meanings have changed (many words, such as “decimate,” have had this happen more than once, and Shea’s explanation of the original original meaning of “decimate” isn’t the kill-every-tenth-person sticklers would have us believe), words that are “not a word,” “verbed” nouns, grammatical gremlins, things that are “ruining the language,” and the arguments that people use to defend English. He ends up with a list of “221 Words That Were Once Frowned Upon,” from “accessorize” to “zoom,” which has some entries that will likely surprise you.
The book is a fun (yes, it’s fine to use “fun” as an adjective, despite that usage having been called “slovenly” as recently as 1980, Shea notes) look at how and why peeves develop, the history of various words and usages, and the ever-shifting nature of English. “Language has an irrepressible desire to change,” Shea points out, “and there are almost no words in English that have been around for more than a few hundred years without taking on new meanings, changing their old ones, or coming to simultaneously mean one thing and the opposite.”
Shea’s lively prose makes this book an enjoyable romp through the history of English while providing fodder against language alarmists. Anyone who can get the phrase “punctilious nitpickery” into print obviously has both a love of language and a sense of humor.
But he does go a little overboard: He’s quite harsh on Orwell’s classic “six language rules,” focusing on the letter of the rules (and the fact that Orwell himself breaks them frequently) rather than their spirit, which allows much more flexibility. He doesn’t have a lot of patience with those who dictate language use -- referring to “screeds” by “language scolds” -- which is understandable, but he doesn’t really distinguish between the priggish prescriptivists and the people whose job it is to produce professional communication for a mass audience.
As an editor, I recognize that language is a living, changing entity and that obsolete rules, rules that aren’t rules and distinctions that are simply “secret handshakes” do no one any good. I also know that language needs to follow some standards in order to effectively and credibly communicate. “Bad English” is a great tool for arguing against the non-rules and shibboleths, but not every rule is bogus, and not every guideline is repressive or worthless. For the sake of clarity in communication, there need to be common standards -- but they need to exist for the sake of clarity, not for the sake of barring words or usages some “purists” don’t like.
jhstack's review
4.0
Ammon Shea's tongue-in-cheek ode to the ever-evolving English language, from the misuses of "literally" to the noun/verb "like" to earlier meanings of "decimate" and more!
pseud0bread's review
4.0
An amusing jaunt through the modern history of the English language that does better job of explaining how to not sound like a dunce than 12 years of public schooling ever did. It also just goes to show that no matter who you are or how adept you are with the English language, there will always be someone who thinks you're doing it wrong.