I love books about language (check out my bookshelves). Imaginary languages? Weirdly specific glossaries? Talking bonobos? Delightful foreign idioms? I love books about language (check out my bookshelves). Imaginary languages? Weirdly specific glossaries? Talking bonobos? Delightful foreign idioms? The latest neurolinguistic breakthrough? Dubious folk etymologies? Yet another book about controversies in English usage? Add it to the bedside pile.
So you'd think I would have enjoyed this perfectly decent book by Henry Hitchings, who appears to be a perfectly decent fellow. He has already written two perfectly decent books about the English language - "Defining the World" and "The Secret Life of Words". The first was about the OED; I haven't read the second. He is obviously interested in English, given that he keeps coming back to it. He is thorough and methodical, meticulous in acknowledging the work of others. His sentences are grammatical.
Unfortunately, they are also, for the most part, exceedingly dull. Some authors write about language with a passion that is infectious. This is not Hitchings's way. His preferred style is a kind of restrained reasonableness that would be laudable if only it weren't so terribly dull.
The final six chapters, in which he focuses on the state of modern English, were more lively than the historical material that forms the core of the book. Unfortunately, given the total of 28 chapters, these represented only about 20% of the book. Earlier chapters had titles that titillated ("Bishop Lowth Was a Fool!", "Of Fish-knives and Fist-fucks"), but did not live up to their promise.
I want to give it a third star, but I can't. It's a perfectly decent book, though. The word "plodding" is surely undeserved. ...more
The Victorians didn't have internet porn or reality TV. Not even WrestleMania. So how did they while away those long winter evenings? Episodes of Mr DThe Victorians didn't have internet porn or reality TV. Not even WrestleMania. So how did they while away those long winter evenings? Episodes of Mr Dickens's charming serialized novels were maddeningly infrequent, and publicly ostracizing those judged to be morally inferior, though fun and necessary, was hardly a full-time pursuit.
Fortunately, there were people like George Washington Moon, ready to fill that entertainment vacuum. Like many an educated Victorian gentleman, George read the august Dean of Canterbury's essays instructing lesser mortals on the proper use of the Queen's English. AND HE FOUND THEM WANTING. A lesser man might have sneered inwardly over his glass of port and left it at that. But George knew that this would be a dereliction of responsibility. He owed it to the world to set things right. He became a man with a mission. The Dean's crimes had to be exposed to the world. As he explains so forcefully in his introduction to this hilarious piece of sustained invective, nothing personal against the Dean, it's just that
"He who hunts down and pillories a slang phrase, a vulgarism, a corruption of any kind, is a public benefactor. In the fulfillment of the sacred trust which rests on him as an educated man, he adds a stone to the bulwark of his nation's safety and greatness."
He's just doing his duty to protect the Empire. Furthermore, he reminds us that
"The power of sneering was given to man to be used; and nothing is more gratifying than to see an idea which is proving a nuisance, sent clattering away with a hue and cry after it, and a tin kettle tied to its tail".
All this is by way of a warmup, alerting us that things might get a little bloody once he really hits his stride. Which he does, for 154 well-argued, magnificently contemptuous, pages. G.W. Moon is relentless. The Dean never stands a chance.
The whole fracas was the Victorian equivalent of a PayPerView televised cage match between Stone Cold Steve Austin and "The Rock". Hulk Hogan versus Rowdy Roddy Piper. Bret Harte versus Shawn Michaels. Alexis versus Krystle. Moon unleashed his invective in instalments, after each episode, the Doctor would gamely try to defend himself, only to be further bloodied in the next round. AS the fight unfolded, all of Britain's educated class watched from the sidelines, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle. In the words of "The Phonetic Journal"
".... to those who enjoy a controversy, conducted with consummate skill and in excellent taste, by a strong man, well armed, it is such a treat as does not fall in one's way often during a lifetime."
So the mauling of the Dean was accomplished in instalments, avidly followed by the entire educated class of Britain, and later by the intellectual class in the U.S. One senses that his death, in 1870, must have come as a welcome release.
The chapters by G.W. Moon form the core of this book. An appendix contains several reviews of the Dean's book by independent sources, as well as reviews that address both the Dean's book and Moon's critiques. The verdict is fairly uniform -- the body lying bleeding on the mat at the end of the final round is that of the Dean.
I'll confess to a fatal weakness for this kind of thing. A literary cage match between two public intellectuals? About English usage? Where the rules of decorum must be observed, so that the nastiness has to be polite (always the most fun)? I want a front row seat.
Through the magic of digitization of content, we can all have a front row seat for this particular match of the century. Just follow the link -
I loved every one of the previous Schott's Miscellanies; this one is not quite of the same caliber. The uniform excellence of the earlier volumes is nI loved every one of the previous Schott's Miscellanies; this one is not quite of the same caliber. The uniform excellence of the earlier volumes is not maintained here.Though there is still plenty of weirdly fascinating, completely useless trivia, this volume does seem to contain more padding. Ten pages given over to various taxonomies of the different stages of life seems excessive, as does the inclusion of a "Withnail and I Imbibing Guide", and the table of word frequencies in Beatle songs. I would not have missed the complete enumeration of Friends episodes, and tabulating the letters of the Greek alphabet hardly seems worth the space.
But you know what? Maybe I'm just being a petty quibbler here (wouldn't be the first time). Because this is a book that also gives you:
480 different ways to spell "scissors" Tintin and the foreign translators (I confess to a prior obsession with the different linguistic variations of "Dupont et Dupond"; it's all here) Animal cries (apes gibber and magpies chatter, but did you know that mastodons bellow, or that bitterns boom?) The Proust questionnaire Notable winds ((from the Chinook to the Williwaw) Curious economic indicators Fool's errands (tartan paint, ethernet tape, wild haggis, eel's feet, ...) Phrases of supererogation and stupidity (coals to Newcastle, owls to Athens, taking your samovar to Tula, ....) Unusual April's Fool Hoaxes A two-page precipitation lexicon* (toad-stranglers, nubbin-stretchers, monkey's weddings, ...)
Guess what? I've worked myself back up to a 4-star rating. To a certain type of reader (and you know who you are) this stuff is like crack cocaine. This sequel might not be strictly necessary, but that doesn't mean it's not a whole lot of fun.
Forget what I said earlier. Ben Scott's genius remains undisputed.
I considered putting this on the "intellectual con artist at work" shelf, but that wouldn't be quite fair. It's not you, Doctor Pennebaker, it's me. II considered putting this on the "intellectual con artist at work" shelf, but that wouldn't be quite fair. It's not you, Doctor Pennebaker, it's me. I have no doubt that the research reported on in this book is genuine, if only because of its excruciatingly tedious nature. Frankly, it's hard to get excited (or even to stay awake) about work that uses word-counting as its primary tool, particularly given Doctor P's fawningly enthusiastic invocation of factor analysis as a legitimate statistical method. Even a reader willing to overlook this (serious) deficiency is likely to be bludgeoned into a state of anesthetized indifference by the pedestrian prose and the sheer banality of the conclusions.
It probably didn't help that I read this book immediately after finishing "Thinking Fast and Slow". Daniel Kahneman's clear, careful, measured exposition reminds us that work in experimental psychology can be reported with lucidity and elegance. The mix of anecdotal evidence, statement of the bloody obvious, and somewhat dubious over-generalization found in this book has to be considered a disappointment. And the whole obsession with pronoun usage seems entirely overblown, and not at all convincing.
Upon reflection, and after reading Trevor's excellent, take-no-prisoners review, (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...) I have to agree with his assessment and downgrade this to a single star. I will spare Pennebaker the indignity of the "intellectual con artist at work" shelf, if only because I kind of feel sorry for anyone whose life work involves research as pathetically boring as his appears to be. ...more
Learning foreign languages is a topic that interests me greatly -- since retiring from my career in statistics I've made a concerted effort to achieveLearning foreign languages is a topic that interests me greatly -- since retiring from my career in statistics I've made a concerted effort to achieve mastery of Spanish and French, and hope eventually to add Italian and Portuguese to that list. Over the last few years I've given a fair amount of thought to efficient strategies for language acquisition, as well as to the challenges of switching among languages. I don't have any simple answers. Neither does Michael Erard, which is probably a point in his favor. In researching this book he set out to investigate the phenomenon that he refers to (excruciatingly, in my view) as "hyperpolyglottery". Acknowledging the difficulties inherent in judging such concepts as "fluency" or "mastery" (particularly in the case of historical figures), Erard adopts a working definition of a "hyperpolyglot" as someone who exhibits mastery of at least six distinct languages. By studying a number of hyperpolyglots, he hopes to gain insight into the process of language acquisition. The results of his research are frankly disappointing. The book introduces us to a number of reasonably entertaining characters, though one of its primary conclusions seems to be that claims of "hyperpolyglottery" (it hurts me to type that "word", it's so ugly) are invariably exaggerated. The tribe of those claiming extraordinary linguistic capacities is rife with impostors and self-promoters. And the evidence provided by the small number of people whose linguistic abilities seem genuinely exceptional amounts to little more than a series of case studies. There are many anecdotes, but little in the way of firm conclusions. One suspects that Doctor Erard must have been a little disappointed by the results of his investigation. I certainly was, though I give him credit for trying....more
The first foreign language I learned to complete fluency was German - after five years of high school German I spent a year at a German boys' boardingThe first foreign language I learned to complete fluency was German - after five years of high school German I spent a year at a German boys' boarding school. At the end of that year I was completely fluent, but noticed an odd phenomenon, that I felt like a slightly different person when I spoke German than when speaking English. Since then I've also learned Spanish to a high degree of fluency, and the same observation holds. In both cases, the main difference that I perceive has to do with humor, and the way the language I'm speaking affects my sense of humor. So I've always been interested in the extent to which language affects thought. The notion that it does is what linguists refer to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Belief in Sapir-Whorf reached its peak in the first half of the 20th century, but since then the notion that language affects cognition has been discredited by almost all mainstream linguists.
In "Through the Language Glass" Guy Deutscher mounts a careful, very limited defence of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. He considers three major areas - the link between language and color perception, how different languages deal with spatial orientation, and the phenomenon of differences in noun genders across different languages. His examination of the link between language and color perception is extensive and thought-provoking - he traces the development of linguistic theory on color perception from British prime minister Gladstone's commentary on the relative paucity of color terms in Homer's work, through the Berlin-Kay model (stating essentially that languages all tend to split up the color spectrum in similar ways) through very recent experiments suggesting that the existence of a particular color distinction in a language (e.g. the existence of separate terms in Russian for light and dark blue) affects the brain's ability to perceive that distinction. Deutscher's account of the evolution of linguistic theory about color perception is a tour de force of scientific writing for a general audience - it is both crystal clear and a pleasure to read.
Two factors contributed to my eventual disappointment with this book. The first is that, even after Deutscher's careful, eloquent, persuasive analysis, one's final reaction has to be a regretful "So what?" In the end, it all seems to amount to little of practical importance.
The second disappointment pertained only to the experience of reading this book on an Amazon Kindle. Reference is made throughout to a "color insert" which evidently contained several color wheels as well as up to a dozen color illustrations. This feature was completely absent from the Kindle edition, which had a severe adverse effect on the overall experience of reading this book. Obviously, this point is relevant only if you are contemplating reading the Kindle version - DON'T!...more
This is an odd book, and not a very good one. As someone with over 120 books on my "words-and-language" shelf, I'm a confirmed language geek. Even theThis is an odd book, and not a very good one. As someone with over 120 books on my "words-and-language" shelf, I'm a confirmed language geek. Even the remotest byways of language have the potential to fascinate me. Though my interest in language is purely amateur, it is of long standing. (When I was learning Spanish a couple of years ago, my classmates were completely spooked by my enthusiasm for the subjunctive, which they deemed "unnatural".) The point is, where books about words and language are concerned, my bar is pretty low. I'm predisposed to like anything written by someone who is enthusiastic about language, generally willing to give the benefit of the doubt.
So a language book has to suck big time for me not to like it. Secret Language manages this by fitting squarely in the category of total pointlessness. For the life of me I can't figure out why this book was written, or what the author was trying to get across. The title seems to promise a unifying theme; I'm sure Barry Blake hoped for something more coherent than this dog's breakfast of a book.
There are two main problems. First, the author's inclusion criteria are far too broad. Under the rubric of "secret language" he drags in so many different topics that the result is an incoherent blur. Major chapter headings include:
1. From Anagrams to Cryptic Crosswords 2. Talking in Riddles 3. Ciphers and Codes 4. Biblical Secrets* 5. Words of Power 6. Words to Avoid 7. Jargon, Slang, Argot & Secret Languages 8. The Everyday Oblique 9. Elusive Allusions
This doesn't look too bad, but there's less to it than meets the eye. The book runs to about 300 pages, so you might reasonably ask
"How will Barry Blake manage to tell us something coherent and interesting about so many subjects in such a short book?"
The answer is simple. He doesn't. He flits from one topic to the next, like a slightly deranged hummingbird on speed, with about as much impact. Any risk of saying anything of substance is minimized by darting rapidly from one topic to the next. The remarks that do make it in are, with rare exceptions, astonishingly banal. Here, for instance, is what Barry has to say about internet argot:
The invention of the internet has given rise to an extensive argot among those communicating by email, instant messaging, and other social media. There are a number of rebus-type substitutions for syllables such as B4 'before', C 'see', M8 'mate', U 'you', abbreviations such as LOL 'laughing out loud', and emoticons such as :-) for 'smile' and :-( for 'sad' (if they are not transparent, turn them 90 degrees clockwise). Similar abbreviations are used in texting by mobile phone.
Pretty edifying stuff, eh? There's a similar paragraph telling us how internet spammers like to incorporate deliberate misspellings in words like Ciali$ or V1agra to thwart email spam filters, whose inclusion I'll spare you, because the boredom in transcribing it might actually be lethal.
The basic problem is that most of the book is like this - the author has very little to say that's original, his writing style makes for heavy sledding, and whatever enthusiasm he might feel for his subject isn't evident to the reader. I found the final chapter, "Elusive Allusions", in which the author explains such difficult linguistic conundrums as the reason Ah-nold is referred to as the "Governator" and the origins of phrases like "Achilles heel" and "Trojan horse", particularly irritating.
*: The inclusion of a chapter devoted to such rubbish as "bible codes" and the like is dispiriting. The "History" channel has a lot to answer for....more
I've been a word geek for as long as I can remember. Big words, little words, in or out of context - they fascinate and delight me. Those lists of weI've been a word geek for as long as I can remember. Big words, little words, in or out of context - they fascinate and delight me. Those lists of weirdly specific phobias , bizarre methods of divining the future , beastly adjectives , crash blossoms -- they keep me entertained for days. In line at the post office, I make up words in my head, or concoct fake but amusing typos. I construct weird little ditties which then stick in my head like the hook of a power ballad by REO Speedwagon.
To someone with a word addiction, the internet presents a constant, boundless, temptation. All those time sinks, the verbal equivalent of YouTube for logophiles, we have them all bookmarked. What's that you say, somewhere there's a list of all the words that David Foster Wallace had circled in his dictionary? How could a person not go visit? Before you know it, another hour wasted, hungry cats circling, and the dishes still not done.
But my interest in words and language is strictly that of an amateur. That’s why you won't find me writing books on the topic. I have your typical INTJ's respect for technical competence, which is to say that I expect someone who writes a book about a given subject to know something about it. This is obviously a very regressive view, in an age where everyone's an expert on everything, courtesy of Wikipedia. But you know, people with an amateur interest in physics, or astronomy, or some other "hard" science generally have enough awareness of their own limitations to stop them from writing books on quantum physics or string theory. Amateur wordlovers and armchair linguists, on the other hand, apparently feel no such inhibition. After all, they've been using words their entire life, so why shouldn't they write a book?
Two particular topics seem to hold a fatal attraction for armchair wordlovers. The first I’ll call “folk etymology”. Since uninformed speculation about the origins of common words and phrases is free and easy, almost anyone can come up with a rambling script that (choose one): 1. purports to establish that virtually every English slang term in current use is derived from a Gaelic/Sanskrit/Klingon root (take your pick) 2. perpetuates the usual grab bag of linguistic urban legends that pollute the internet 3. adds another two cents to the mountain of rampant speculation about the origins of a handful of expressions that might reasonably be termed “the usual suspects”. It is mandatory for books in the third category to include at least four pages of tedious speculation about the origins of the term "OK", just as it is customary to pad those in the second category with demonstrably false (mis)information presented as fact (rule of thumb is related to wife-beating, posh is an acronym for "port out, starboard home" on ships to India, news is an acronym signifying “North-East-West-South, saved by the bell originated with precautions taken by people who feared being buried alive, and other popular linguistic urban legends). The canonical example in the first category is the appalling, shameful, How the Irish Invented Slang, a monument to a certain kind of sloppy “scholarship” so wilfully anti-intellectual it flirts with mental retardation. The basic fallacy is an inability (or unwillingness) to distinguish between random similarities in spelling and a genuine etymological connection, leading to such obviously bogus claims as the statement that “jazz” and “bunkum” have Gaelic roots. A (relatively restrained) debunking may be found at this link.
The second lexicological McGuffin is the slippery concept of “words in other languages that have no exact equivalent in English”, often referred to as being “untranslatable”. This is like catnip to word-fanciers; in addition to Christopher Moore’s book, there are several others out there with the same basic premise. Howard Rheingold’s They Have a Word for It dates back to 1988; in 2005, an English author called Adam Jacot de Boinod came out with “The meaning of Tingo” in similar vein, and subsequently followed it with a sequel, “The Wonder of Whiffling”. Books in this general category all follow the same approximate formula – lists of putatively untranslatable words in various languages, interspersed with comments by the author of varying length and insight. They all face the same fundamental challenge, not always successfully – since the author cannot possibly master every language for which an example is quoted, he cannot guarantee accuracy of content based on personal knowledge and is forced to rely on external sources.
It doesn’t always work out as well as you might hope. “The Meaning of Tingo”, for example, is generally recognized to be riddled with inaccuracies; a distressingly high proportion of entries have no discernible basis in fact and are, at best, amusing flights of fancy. This inconvenient truth is not acknowledged explicitly by the author, but becomes clear if one reads the comments at the author’s website, or reviews of the book at Amazon. There are a few warning signs, however – an uncritical embracing of the linguistic urban legend involving the number of Eskimo words for snow, inclusion of the Russian (non)-word for falling out of love, “razliubit”, as well as a generally unquestioning tone of acceptance that borders on the naive.
I regret to report that Christopher Moore’s contribution to this particular sub-genre is also notable for its general air of credulity. His scholarly approach appears to have been little more than to find and ask one native speaker for each of a variety of languages. The results are amusing, but don’t inspire much confidence. There is a suspiciously high number of words of alleged Scandinavian and Teutonic origin which purport to describe the unique sense of “coziness at home” felt by inhabitants of the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Norway – it makes a person wonder if there isn’t some kind of concerted conspiracy by inhabitants of these countries to present a more positive view of life in winter than can realistically thought plausible. “Razliubit” also makes an appearance, with no indication that its status as genuine is mired in controversy. And, in the one area where I have some personal ability to make a judgment, I estimated that about half the words of “celtic” origin included were problematic in some way. But then the introductory sentence to that chapter gives a clear indication of where the problems are likely to lie, not just for the chapter, but for the entire book:
“Gaelic is an ancient Celtic tongue with an oral tradition that spans almost two thousand years and reflects a crofting lifestyle that remained virtually unchanged in all that time.”
The magical, mystical celtic twilight strikes again! With this sentence Moore unwittingly points out the flaw that undermines his own endeavor – ultimately the kind of “untranslatable word” that is likely to make it into his book is that which confirms whatever preexisting romantic notion he has about the language and people concerned, accuracy be damned.
But then I realize that this is the unavoidable flaw in every book in this category. If it bothers you, steer clear. If not, be my guest – you may find these books funny and diverting. Just please ingest with a few grains of salt. ...more
I actually own the third edition of this fine book, by which time Ricardo Navas-Ruiz had added a co-author, someone called Covadonga Llorente. The titI actually own the third edition of this fine book, by which time Ricardo Navas-Ruiz had added a co-author, someone called Covadonga Llorente. The title has also changed, as the book now incorporates a section on La Voz Pasiva.
Not to minimize Covadonga's contribution, but the passive voice is the least of your worries as far as the whole ser/estar morass is concerned. The two chapters it gets at the end of the book run to only 9 of the book's 90 pages.
The problem with the whole ser/estar problem is that there's really no getting away from it. If you want to speak Spanish that's even remotely idiomatic, you will have to wrestle with both forms of the verb to be. How hideous you find it may vary, depending on your familiarity with other languages, many of which find even more complicated ways of expressing the state of being (Irish comes to mind).
Anyway, this is a decent little book, focusing on examples and exercise drills rather than theory. Which is exactly what this kind of book should do. It does, of course, sneak in two chapters about prepositions (para, con, sin, a, de, en, & por), but that's unavoidable, as they are essential in the formation of various modismos and expresiones especiales using ser & estar.
There's no effort to liven things up, say with humor, drawings, or any concession to decent graphic design. The approach is charmless, but efficient.
I read McWhorter's "The Power of Babel" a few years ago and thought it was terrific. His subsequent effort, "Doing our own Thing", was a major disappoI read McWhorter's "The Power of Babel" a few years ago and thought it was terrific. His subsequent effort, "Doing our own Thing", was a major disappointment - self-indulgent, undisciplined, and essentially pointless. So I would have skipped this one (a cover blurb that squeezes the chestnuts "rollicking tour" and "rousing celebration" into the same sentence is generally not a good sign). Did I really need reassurance from yet another linguist that it's OK to split an infinitive, or to end a sentence with a preposition? But then there was Manny's recent rave review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/....
My reaction? Modified rapture at best. There's a kind of forced flashiness to McWhorter's style that I don't particularly enjoy. Calling English a dolphin in a family of assorted types of deer (the Germanic relatives of English) gets the point across, but the metaphor is nowhere near as clever as McWhorter seems to think, and spinning it out across two paragraphs ("antlered, fleet-footed, big-brown-eyed variations on a theme" - yeah, dude, we know what the word "deer" means, as if you hadn't already enumerated "antelopes, springboks, kudu, and so on" earlier in the sentence) is irritating, to say the least.
For the first 60 pages of this book, McWhorter sets out to answer the question of why English favors the use of "be" and "do" as auxiliary verbs in constructions like "I'm watching TV" (actual present, as opposed to the habitual present "I watch TV", a distinction which confuses the bejasus out of most non-native speakers), in questions ("do you watch"?), or negative statements. None of its immediate relatives, either on the Germanic or the Romance side, uses such a construction. Fair enough, it's not a completely boring question, though it's hardly the major mystery he makes it out to be either. I figured out the answer to this at about age 5, when I first started to learn Irish (Gaelic) -- it's a Celtic thing, see?
So that extended first chapter, in which the only point that is being developed is that the Celtic languages (Irish, Welsh, Scots Gaelic) influenced English syntax, hardly qualifies as a major revelation. Unfortunately, McWhorter beats it into the ground like the proverbial dead horse. For 60 pages. You start the second chapter with a sense of profound relief only to find - unspeakable horror - that he's not done. More statement of the profoundly obvious.
I guess this is the major reason for my inability to share Manny's rabid enthusiasm for this book. Like so many of his colleagues, McWhorter expends a lot of effort in addressing what I consider to be obvious linguistic strawmen - the notion that linguistics is just about etymology, the red herring of grammatical hypercorrectness, the idea that vocabulary is the only measure of influence of one language on another, the spectacularly uninteresting strong form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It's as if he's writing for a readership consisting exclusively of people who have never undergone the intellectual exercise of learning a second language. Because if you've ever gone through that particular struggle, it seems to me that you're guaranteed to have thought about language deeply enough to make much of the material in this book seem like little more than a statement of the bloody obvious.
And yeah, what the hell - it's a book about language, so I'll bitch. The shorthand term McWhorter uses throughout, that English employs a "meaningless do", seems infelicitous at best. ...more
This is an undisciplined dogs-breakfast of a book. David Crystal, the author of such previous books as "How Language Works", "The Stories of English" This is an undisciplined dogs-breakfast of a book. David Crystal, the author of such previous books as "How Language Works", "The Stories of English" is a highly respected commentator on language. For the life of me, I have never been able to figure out why - he has a flair for dullness that must be considered remarkable.
The blurb on the back cover describes this book as "a jaunty Bill Bryson-esque exploration of (the English) language by a foremost expert on the subject", which I probably should have interpreted as a warning of the sloppy, disorganized, stream-of-consciousness muddle within. I don't know much about the publishers of this mess, the Overlook Press, but the available evidence suggests that their budget didn't actually run to hiring an editor.
For almost 300 pages, Professor Crystal wanders the backroads of Wales and the west of England (with an occasional excursion to Silicon Valley and to Lodz) and bores us with his random free-associations about local place names and language communities as he does so. Unfortunately, these observations never rise above the pedestrian - the chapter about San Francisco is almost lethally soporific, and the only adequate description of his occasional efforts at wit is the phrase "epic fail".
If this is his best effort, the professor really should consider retiring to spend more time with his family....more
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