A review by ashleylm
Don't Believe a Word: The Surprising Truth about Language by David Shariatmadari

4.0

Quite an entertaining, informative, brisk read, although not quite as compelling as the high water mark (for me) of Guy Deustcher's The Unfolding of Language which completely blew my mind, but of course I can't keep re-reading it. Hadn't realized that Chomsky's Big Idea had (apparently) been disproven, so that's the main takeaway, but lots of fun and interesting details, and it gets more interesting later, as the beginning resembles other, similar books--great if you're new to this, a bit dull if you've read several on the subject.

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!