The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way by Bill Bryson
245 pages
Published 1990
Read from May 29 to May 30
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5
This
was a solidly entertaining book in the expected Bryson fashion, but
just a little bit underwhelming. It was good, but lacked a certain
punchy je ne sais quoi that elevates Bryson's very best work, such as In a Sunburned Country.
Partly this underwhelming effect may be due to my coming to this book
so late, after absorbing much the same information and humor (or at least halfhearted approximations of the same) from a few
dozen Cracked and io9 articles and one or two other books on the
peccadilloes of language. Bryson can't be faulted for that. Nonetheless I
finished this book feeling there should have been a lot more to it,
both in substance and in humor.
I agree with your review, and suggest avoiding Bryson's Made in America. Well, read the first couple of chapters (which do discuss some interesting things, like the Pilgrims' accent), then bail before it devolves into a chronological word origin list. ("Then historical incident X happened, which gave us words A, B, and C. Then historical incident Y happened, which gave us words D, E, and F....")
ReplyDeleteCan you recommend any good books on linguistic history? I read and enjoyed Ostler's Empires of the Word, but that's about it. My library has only a couple other language history books, but maybe I can get them to ILL or straight-up order some more.
DeleteThere's a really good one called Empires of the ... oh. Sorry, that's all I got.
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