PDF Ebook Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation, by Ammon Shea

PDF Ebook Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation, by Ammon Shea

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Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation, by Ammon Shea

PDF Ebook Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation, by Ammon Shea

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Review

"Language is funny, and so is Ammon Shea. His excellent new book tours our irrational prejudices about language, showing that an appreciation for the quirks and ironies of language history can put our understanding on a firmer basis and restore our sense of humor."—David Skinner, author of The Story of Ain't"On the playground of language, there is no more mischievous laddie than Ammon Shea. I plan to use his new book to split the lip of the next insufferable language prig who saunters into my office to accuse me of bad English."  —Roy Peter Clark, author of The Glamour of Grammar and How to Write Short“In Bad English, Ammon Shea wastes no time challenging widely held beliefs about just what English is bad. His subtitle, “A History of Linguistic Aggravation,” gets in an opening jab at sticklers like me, who know that “irritate” means annoy while “aggravate” means “make worse.” Shea, having read the OED to write Reading the OED, is well qualified to tell us we probably don’t know as much as we think we do.”—Washington PostPraise for Reading the OED:"Oddly inspiring...Shea has walked the wildwood of our gnarled, ancient speech and returned singing incomprehensible sounds in a language that turns out to be our own."—Nicholson Baker, New York Times Book Review"Delicious...a lively lexicon."—O, The Oprah Magazine"Readworthy."—William Safire, The New York Times Magazine“Shea, an avid collector of words, displays an assortment for our pleasure as he wends his way through the alphabet.”—The Boston Globe

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About the Author

Ammon Shea is the author of Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages along with Depraved English, Insulting English, and The Phone Book. A dictionary collector, he has worked as a consulting editor of American dictionaries at Oxford University Press. He has also contributed to the "On Language" column in Sunday's New York Times and has reviewed language books for the New York Times Book Review. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.From the Trade Paperback edition.

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Product details

Hardcover: 272 pages

Publisher: TarcherPerigee (June 3, 2014)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0399165576

ISBN-13: 978-0399165573

Product Dimensions:

5.9 x 0.9 x 8.5 inches

Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.0 out of 5 stars

52 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#902,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

There are two schools of thought among lexicographers and grammarians -- prescriptivists and descriptivists. The prescriptivists think that their profession includes guidance on speaking and writing "proper" English. The descriptivists believe that their job is just to describe how English is actually used. Most lexicographers and grammarians are a little bit of both. Shea tilts very much toward the descriptivist end of the spectrum -- I can only think of one place where he finds a usage to be improper. Along the way, he debunks prescriptivist claims about the improper or unhistorical nature of many words and word usages, such as "ain't," "compact," dangling prepositions, split infinitives, inappropriate apostrophes, etc. His researches into word history are learned and extraordinary, and effectively demolishe claims that certain disfavored usages are new or unattested in good authors. Furthermore, the book is a fun read. He uses humor to demonstrate that staid and proper grammarians do not know what they are talking about. His central thesis seems to be that there is no one such thing as "good English."One could wish for a little more reflection from Shea, however. Like anything which evolves over time, language changes because more useful locutions drive out older, less useful ones. How does this happen, and why? Linguist evolution requires two things -- a certain degree of stability of usage, or people could not understand each other at all, and a certain degree of change, or language could not adapt to new conditions. It seems to me that Shea underplays the role of the former. Language serves many functions, but surely the most important of them is intelligibility. Change words and usage too fast and people cannot understand each other: indeed, one of the tactics used by "in groups" is to modify language in ways sufficiently radically that they cannot be understood by the general public. How much "incorrect" usage -- i.e. linguistic change -- can a language tolerate before it becomes another language? Why does language change? Is there an overall pattern to linguistic change, or are its changes purely arbitrary? Shea touches on such questions, but does so lightly and in passing. It would be beneficial if he would write another, more philosophical, book that address these deeper questions. Still, a very good book and an excellent introduction to issues confronting language and its usages.

This is a very well written, interesting collection of commentaries on many current English usages which many of us--we few, we unhappy few, we small band of brothers and sisters-- find offensive, or to be signs of ignorance or simple sloth in our native tongue. The writer's approach is more or less, "Unless there is some obvious error, new usages are just the changes to our living language. Changes of nouns into transitive verbs [see, e.g., "incentivize"] are just fine. What is, is; what will be, will be; don't worry, be happy..." To which this curmudgeon says, "Hrrrumph; balderdash." Many of Mr. Shea's apologia for current misusage are backed up with isolated references to very old (many centuries, in some cases) passages from writers or personages of great or little renown to, in essence, say, "See, old so-and-so wrote the same thing way back-a-then, so it's okay." But that assumes that old so-and-so was correct way-back-a-then, an assumption which I am not prepared to indulge: the rhetorical device of the appeal ad vericundiam rarely carries the day. There are proper usages and improper usages, and educated people who encounter those who use the slovenly "new" usages think less of the slovenly, and thus, especially to younger people or new speakers of English looking to advance in a world controlled by the educated, English speakers are done a disservice by being given a bye for poor usage. All that said, this is very much worth the read, as he does make some interesting points about the morphology of English usage, and it is very true that languages that do not grow and change, die.

There is some repetition in terms of the points that English is a constantly changing language, that words considered acceptable today were formerly frowned upon (and the opposite as well), and that attempts to prevent the gradual modification of the language are largely futile. However, much of the book is a description of various words and elements of grammar that are part of the history of English, and of the amusing and sometimes extravagant characters that have cared deeply about the language and its changes. The author has a clever sense of humor, and I enjoyed this book.

Fascinating book that is written in clear and precise terms that explain the origin, history, and development of a word and the idiosyncrasies of it's usage within a society. I really enjoyed Shea's explanations, critiques, and rationales for word usage. The introduction gives one a picture into the points and goals of the author. As a student of colloquial and modern language usage I am appreciative of Shea's scholarship and understanding of his subject. The book is a welcome addition to my library.

This is a book that should be read by all English teachers and anyone who likes language. The author gives many examples of "bad English" usage that were the whim of one or more language critics that were unaware of the history of the word. Some examples of "bad English" actually predate "good English". Despite the facts, some readers will remain uncomfortable with some usage, but he reminds us that a living language is constantly changing---otherwise we would still be speaking Old English. As Shakespeare wrote, "Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so."

The research that went into this book is outstanding. The author writes with his great sense of humor and it's very educational for English freaks and geeks. But for the casual reader, it's a bit over the top. Do people really lose their minds over changes in the ever-changing English language? I guess so.

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Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation, by Ammon Shea PDF